Migration and the persistence of violence

Abstract

Using data on millions of internal US migrants, we document that historical homicide rates follow migrants around the United States. Individuals born in historically safe states remain safer wherever they go, while individuals born in historically dangerous states face a greater risk, including from police violence. This pattern holds across demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and marital status, across migrant groups with different average levels of education, income, and even when comparing migrants from different states who reside in the same county. To help understand why, we conducted a large national survey that oversampled internal White US migrants. The results suggest this persistence may reflect a sociocultural adaptation to dangerous settings. Residents and migrants from historically unsafe states—mainly former frontier states and the deep South—see the world as more dangerous, react more forcefully in aggressive scenarios, value toughness, distrust law enforcement, and say they rely on self and family in violent situations. These adaptations may have kept them safe in historically dangerous states, but may increase their vulnerability to harm in safer states.