About

Charis E. Kubrin is a Chancellor's Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the UCI School of Social Ecology, with a courtesy appointment in Sociology. Her research primarily examines the immigration-crime nexus, the impact of immigration-related policies on immigrant communities, and the effects of criminal justice reform on crime rates. She also explores the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials against young men of color, critiquing the intersection of media, culture, and justice. Prof. Kubrin has held various prestigious positions and fellowships, including being a member of the Council on Criminal Justice, the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice Network, and a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Criminology. She is actively involved in multiple research networks and initiatives, such as co-directing the Irvine Laboratory for the Study of Space and Crime and organizing workshops on corrections reform. Her scholarly contributions have been recognized through numerous awards from the American Society of Criminology and the Western Society of Criminology, including the W.E.B. DuBois Award and the Paul Tappan Award. She was named a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 2019 and is a co-recipient of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, awarded in 2026. Prof. Kubrin is also known for her public engagement, including a TEDx talk on rap music and justice issues, and she has authored several books and articles addressing topics such as immigration, crime, race, and criminal justice policies. Her work critically assesses contemporary issues of race and justice, emphasizing the importance of evidence-based policy and scholarly analysis in understanding and addressing societal challenges.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Criminology
• Law
• Computer Security
• Economics
• Demography
• Computer Science
• Biology
• Mathematics
• Geography
• Social psychology
• Economic growth
• Development economics
• History
• Medicine
• Economic geography
• Demographic economics
• Ecology
• Macroeconomics
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Immigration and crime around the globe: key findings across a diverse range of contexts

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2025-04-17

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter reviews the ever-growing body of empirical research on the immigration-crime link around the globe, focusing on studies across a diverse range of contexts: the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. For each context, using a narrative review approach, we identify and describe findings from empirical studies on immigration and crime, as well as compare and contrast the findings across contexts. We conclude the chapter by extracting key lessons and takeaways that, we hope, will help generate a fruitful research agenda moving forward.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Immigration and Crime: The Role of Immigrant Heterogeneity

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Immigration and Crime in Comparative Perspective: An Emerging Framework for Research

  Crime and Justice · 2025-08-08

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Research on immigration and crime has experienced unprecedented growth. Studies reveal that immigration is not associated with increased crime rates in many countries including the United States, Canada, and Australia. In other places such as Europe, the findings are more mixed. Yet, limitations in this body of work hamper our understanding. In particular, researchers rely too heavily on conceptual dichotomies, or mutually exclusive categorizations (e.g., foreign-born vs. native-born, documented vs. undocumented, first generation vs. second generation), which insufficiently capture nuance or layers of diversity inherent in immigrant populations. Dichotomies must be replaced with an analytical framework that incorporates multiple dimensions of immigration. Beyond foreign-born (vs. native-born) status, intersections of immigrants’ legal statuses, assimilation levels, motives for migration, and settlement contexts create diverse groups whose backgrounds, experiences, and opportunities all have potential consequences for crime.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Immigration and crime around the globe: key findings across a diverse range of contexts

  CrimRxiv · 2025-09-16

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter reviews the ever-growing body of empirical research on the immigration-crime link around the globe, focusing on studies across a diverse range of contexts: the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. For each context, using a narrative review approach, we identify and describe findings from empirical studies on immigration and crime, as well as compare and contrast the findings across contexts. We conclude the chapter by extracting key lessons and takeaways that, we hope, will help generate a fruitful research agenda moving forward.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Immigration and Crime: The Role of Immigrant Heterogeneity <sup/>

  Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency · 2025-06-12

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Objectives Research on the immigration-crime link has grown substantially yet researchers have not sufficiently considered immigrant heterogeneity, which reflects both the number of immigrant groups in a community and their relative sizes or representation, even as theory has a lot to say regarding the possible impact of such heterogeneity. With few exceptions, scholars have yet to consider how immigrant diversity, including by race/ethnicity, country of origin, or language use, may matter for the immigration-crime association. This is the focus of the current study. Methods Building on a handful of studies, we examine the association between measures of immigrant heterogeneity based on different social dimensions and crime rates across 15,000 neighborhoods in roughly 350 U.S. cities, reflecting a wide range of immigrant community contexts. Results We find that immigrant diversity matters greatly for neighborhood crime rates, although in unique ways. Conclusions We discuss the implications of our findings for theories that emphasize the consequences of heterogeneity specifically, and for the immigration-crime relationship more generally.

  PublisherDOI

• Immigration and Crime in Comparative Perspective: An Emerging Framework for Research

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Immigration and Crime: Is the Relationship Nonlinear?

  CrimRxiv · 2024-06-24

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Research finds that immigration and crime are not related across neighbourhoods, contrary to social disorganization theory and consistent with the immigration revitalization thesis. This research, however, is largely silent as to any possible nonlinear effects. Yet social theory offers sound reasons for why the immigration–crime association may be nonlinear; explanations, including immigrant/ethnic enclave theory and immigrant victimization theory, underscore potential concentration effects—albeit in different ways. Using a novel dataset with information on crime in over 15,000 neighbourhoods across a diverse range of US cities, we examine whether or not the immigration–crime association is nonlinear. We find that for both violent and property crime, a nonlinear relationship best captures the relationship. In additional analyses, we determine the theoretical perspective with which the findings are most consistent.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Immigration and Crime: Is the Relationship Nonlinear?

  The British Journal of Criminology · 2024-07-05 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Research finds that immigration and crime are not related across neighbourhoods, contrary to social disorganization theory and consistent with the immigration revitalization thesis. This research, however, is largely silent as to any possible nonlinear effects. Yet social theory offers sound reasons for why the immigration–crime association may be nonlinear; explanations, including immigrant/ethnic enclave theory and immigrant victimization theory, underscore potential concentration effects—albeit in different ways. Using a novel dataset with information on crime in over 15,000 neighbourhoods across a diverse range of US cities, we examine whether or not the immigration–crime association is nonlinear. We find that for both violent and property crime, a nonlinear relationship best captures the relationship. In additional analyses, we determine the theoretical perspective with which the findings are most consistent.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rap on Trial: A Legal Guide for Attorneys, 2nd

  CrimRxiv · 2024-06-17

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Rap On Trial: A Legal Guide for Attorneys is a legal guide to help attorneys defend against the use of rap lyrics in criminal proceedings. This manual, co-authored by Jack Lerner and Charis Kubrin with members of the Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology (IPAT) Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, is a comprehensive resource for attorneys dealing with rap lyrics introduced at any stage of criminal proceedings — from initial discovery to trial to sentencing. The guide includes explanations of common rap conventions that may be unfamiliar to lawyers and jurors, an overview of empirical research on rap and bias, legal grounds for evidentiary and First Amendment challenges to admitting lyrics into trial, and suggestions for jury selection.Since the Guide’s original release, we have talked with hundreds of attorneys dealing with this issue, and their feedback on the Guide has been invaluable. And there has been important progress in the national conversation about systemic racism in the criminal justice system and how it relates to the “Rap on Trial” phenomenon. Despite the progress, prosecutors still attempt to use rap lyrics against young Black and Brown artists whenever they can. Much work still remains, and it is our hope that this guide will educate the public and aid attorneys in the fight against this pernicious practice.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rap on Trial: A Legal Guide&amp;nbsp;for Attorneys, 2nd

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Explaining Low Crime Rates in Immigrant Communities

  NSF · $268k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• William Thompson

  Johns Hopkins University

  32 shared

• Graham C. Ousey

  William & Mary

  31 shared

• Gregory D. Squires

  George Washington University

  22 shared

• Tim Wadsworth

  University of Colorado Boulder

  17 shared

• Simon A. Cole

  University of California, Irvine

  16 shared

• Tommy Kemp

  University of Southern California

  16 shared

• Bobby Lovell

  University of Southern California

  16 shared

• Gasper Patrico

  Texas Christian University

  16 shared

Labs

• ILSSC Irvine Lab for the Study of Space and CrimePI

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of Washington

Awards & honors

• Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Soci…
• Herbert Bloch Award from the American Society of Criminology
• Coramae Richey Mann Award from the Division on People of Col…
• W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Western Society of Criminology
• Paul Tappan Award from the Western Society of Criminology