Birthplace, Migration and Crime: The Australian Experience [Hardcover]

An historical and contemporary account of migrant crime in Australia, this book explores a range of issues from mental health and victimology to immigration policy and legal analysis, arguing that it is birthplace, not race, which impacts upon crimes committed by migrants.PART I: HISTORICAL, POLICY, AND LEGAL ISSUES 1. Introduction 2. Policy, Population, and Culture 3. Immigration Reports to Date PART II: ISSUES, DATA, AND INTERPRETATION 4. Crime Issues 5. Law Issues 6. Police 7. Courts 8. Prisons 9. Mental Health and Crime 10. Victimology 11. Communication PART III: METHOD, THEORY, AND MORAL ISSUES 12. Social Matters and Indicators 13. Theory and Critiques 14. Special Problems: Some Basic Facts 15. Moral Issues PART IV: CONCLUDING COMMENTS 16. Commentary and Conclusions

Few issues arouse more intense contemporary debate in many nations around the globe than those relating to migration policy and practice. In this excellent book Ronald Francis contributes to this debate a detailed and scholarly analysis of the links between migration and rates of offending, imprisonment, mental illness, crime victimization and associated matters. Its focus is on Australia, a nation whose modern history began with the involuntary migration of convicts and whose population continues to absorb significant numbers of voluntary migrants as well as refugees and displaced persons. The principal message which Francis conveys is, in general, positive- the foreign born tend to be more law abiding than their native born counterparts- but decisions concerning who should be allowed to migrate to a multicultural country like Australia will still become ever more challenging.

- Duncan Chappell, Adjunct Professor, Sydney University Law School, Australia

Ronald Francis started to write about immigrant integration and crime more than thirty years ago. At that time, the immigration-crime link was regarded as a minor social issue in most of the immigrationlY