Immigration: Social Inhibitors Impact on the Increasing Rates of Crime Amongst Latino Populations

Latino immigrants face a necessary process of assimilation in order to become a functioning member of society. This assimilation process induces and deduces criminal and deviant behaviors depending upon the maturity of the community and the social inhibitors that are present within that immigrant community. This paper is an analytical policy paper that focuses on the first, 1.5 and second generation Latino immigrants, the social inhibitors they face and the crimes they commit in the United States. Ethnic identity, cultural maintenance, linguistic isolation and economic deprivation are the social inhibitors that are the byproducts of the assimilation process and cause Latino immigrant populations to become involved in drug and violent crime. The impact of this research provides information about Latino criminal and deviant behavior and focuses on the fact that crime has the ability to decrease as positive social inhibitors increase within a community, which work to create an informal social code and support network.