Charlton et al.: Seasonal Agriculture and Crime

In Seasonal Agricultural Activity and Crime, Diane Charlton, Brock Smith (both Agricultural Economics & Economics, Montana State), and Alexander James (Economics, University of Alaska) analyze data on criminal activity correspondence with fruit, vegetable, and horticultural (FVH) employment in an effort to estimate the causal effect of labor-intensive seasonal agricultural activity on crime.  

This analysis, published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, was motivated in part by the observation that many Americans think immigrants – and undocumented immigrants in particular – are more likely to commit crimes than natural-born citizens. In addition, many Americans associate seasonal farm labor with crime more generally. As a result, the authors conducted this research to test whether these fears and beliefs can be validated by a causal relationship. 

Combining employment data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and crime data from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), the authors distinguished their results into two categories - property crimes and violent crimes. For property crimes, the authors find that the increased seasonal labor force share is not associated with an increase in the number of property crimes. The property crime rate actually declines as the size of the labor force increases. For violent crimes, increased seasonal FVH labor employment has little or no effect on the violent crime rate.  

The authors articulate two possible reasons that seasonal agricultural activity may actually reduce crime. First, increased agricultural activity improves labor market opportunities as a whole, thereby raising the opportunity cost of engaging in illegal activity. Second, according to estimates derived from other work, immigrants are in fact less likely to commit crimes than non-immigrants, and the large majority of migrant farmworkers are immigrants.  

In sum, Seasonal Agricultural Activity and Crime helps to show that intensive agricultural activity is not associated with increased violent or property crimes, and thus common American concerns to the contrary are largely unwarranted.