POLS 4900 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Homicide
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In politics and law enforcement, proponents of the new legislation which essentially
legalizes racial profiling argue that it will help cure the effects of illegal immigration including:
hurting the American economy, adding significantly to crime, and contributing to
unemployment. Legislators and the jurisdictions which follow out their workings completely
ignore the estrangement of American citizens who may ethnically resemble the illegal aliens
their laws aim to target. Should law enforcement carry out statues that violates civil rights of
American citizens in an effort to catch illegal aliens? Certainly not. They should furthermore
give more focus to carrying out their original mission especially given the necessity of
cooperation between police and the communities, the legacy of racial profiling which exists in
America, and the simple upholding of civil rights for American citizens.
As a result of the post September 11th refocusing of law enforcement to carrying out
issues of homeland security they have begun to split their resources, formerly used to carry out
police work, to not only carry out police work but also address local instances that suggest a
terroristic threat. Recently added to the list, protecting the homeland from illegal aliens has
become a new priority for some localities. This new focus has distracted law enforcement from
addressing crime in the manner necessary to bring crime rates to a lower level. (FBI) Specifically
in states that have adopted legislation mandating the new focus crime rates have not been able to
produce police systems that bring the crime rates down. Statistics historically do not support the
legitimacy in managing immigration as a police function, because in the 1990’s the peak of
immigration into the United States proves that upon the arrival of the largest influx of
immigration crime was at its lowest rates. In a study made famous by Tim Wadsworth, an
assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the influx of new
immigration between 1990 and 2000 was responsible for a 9.3 percent decrease in homicide rates
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