Charis Kubrin

Professor UC Irvine

  • Irvine CA

Charis E. Kubrin is Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by courtesy) Sociology.

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Biography

Charis E. Kubrin is Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by courtesy) Sociology. She is also a member of the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice- Network. Her research focuses on neighborhood correlates of crime, with an emphasis on race and violent crime. Recent work in this area examines the immigration-crime nexus across neighborhoods and cities, as well as assesses the impact of criminal justice reform on crime rates. Another line of research explores the intersection of music, culture, and social identity, particularly as it applies to hip hop and minority youth in disadvantaged communities.

Professor Kubrin has received several national awards including the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology (for outstanding scholarly contributions to the discipline of criminology); the Coramae Richey Mann Award from the Division on People of Color and Crime, the American Society of Criminology (for outstanding contributions of scholarship on race/ethnicity, crime, and justice); and the W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Western Society of Criminology (for significant contributions to racial and ethnic issues in the field of criminology). Most recently she received the Paul Tappan Award from the Western Society of Criminology (for outstanding contributions to the field of criminology). In 2019, she was named a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology.

Issues of race and justice are at the forefront of Professor Kubrin’s TEDx talk, The Threatening Nature of…Rap Music?, which focuses on the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials against young men of color. Along with Barbara Seymour Giordano, Kubrin received a Cicero Speechwriting Award for this talk in the category of “Controversial or Highly Politicized Topic.”

Areas of Expertise

Race, Ethnicity, and Crime
Crime Trends
Crime
Immigration and Crime
Rap Music and Media
Criminal Justice Reform

Accomplishments

Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award

from the American Society of Criminology (for outstanding scholarly contributions to the discipline of criminology)

Coramae Richey Mann Award

from the Division on People of Color and Crime, the American Society of Criminology (for outstanding contributions of scholarship on race/ethnicity, crime, and justice)

W.E.B. DuBois Award

from the Western Society of Criminology (for significant contributions to racial and ethnic issues in the field of criminology)

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Education

University of Washington

PhD

Sociology

Affiliations

  • American Society of Criminology : Fellow

Media Appearances

After Trump immigration order, ICE ‘force multiplier’ agreements with Texas police surge

KXAN  online

2025-05-12

“There are plenty of studies that show that the immigrants in the United States commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens,” [Professor Annie] Bright said. “That is pretty undisputed.” Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California Irvine, has studied that link and wrote about it in her 2023 book “Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock.” … “The foundational assumption for the vast majority of these policies is that immigration and crime go hand in hand,” Kubrin said. “I’ve done the research myself and also have reviewed all of the research in the field, and that is an incorrect assumption. That is a flawed assumption.”

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How spin and falsehoods propelled Trump's immigration crackdown in his first 100 days

Politifact  online

2025-04-28

"People are like, ‘Crime is out of control.’ Well, actually, crime is not out of control right now, but the perception is that it's out of control," said Charis Kubrin, a University of California, Irvine criminology, law and society professor. "It's very easy to turn and blame immigrants, because those stereotypes have long existed and because it's sort of this natural in group, out group approach that people take." Kubrin said that Trump’s misleading claims about immigrants and crime have led to policies based on faulty assumptions that don’t exclusively target people with criminal convictions.

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Opinion | Crime fighting efforts should start with Trump's buddies

The Washington Post  online

2025-04-14

During last fall's presidential debate and in dozens of campaign stops, Donald Trump accused Joe Biden of releasing “millions” of criminals on America's citizens through his lax immigration policies. … The charge was, of course, absurd. While there were a handful of cases of criminals getting across the border, Charis Kubrin, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine, pointed out that "immigrants commit crime at a lower rate compared to their native born peers.”

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Articles

Sanctuary Status and Crime in California: What’s the Connection?

Justice Evaluation Journal

2020

In 2017, California officially became a sanctuary state following the passage of Senate Bill 54, which limits state and local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Following the passage of SB54, critics worried that crime rates would rise. What impact did this policy have on crime in California? The current study, the first of its kind, addresses this question.

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Medical Marijuana Laws and Suicide

Archives of Suicide Research

2019

In the current study we use a synthetic control group design to estimate the causal effect of a medical marijuana initiative on suicide risk. In 1996, California legalized marijuana use for medical purposes. Implementation was abrupt and uniform, presenting a “natural experiment.”

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Institutional Completeness and Crime Rates in Immigrant Neighborhoods

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

2018

A growing body of research finds that immigration has a null or negative association with neighborhood crime rates. We build on this important literature by investigating the extent to which one theory, institutional completeness theory, may help explain lower crime rates in immigrant communities across the Southern California region. Specifically, we test whether two key measures of institutional completeness—the presence of immigrant/ethnic voluntary organizations in the community and the presence and diversity of immigrant/ethnic businesses in the community—account for lower crime rates in some immigrant communities.

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