Caribbean Immigrants’ Willingness to Report Crime to the Police in New York City

The reporting of crime as victims and witnesses has important implications for police effectiveness in crime prevention, crime control, and community safety. However, some groups, for example, immigrants (otherwise referred to as foreign-born individuals), may feel less obligated to report crimes to the police. While there is a growing body of literature on a wide range of immigrant populations’ willingness to report criminal activities to the police in New York City as victims and witnesses, conspicuously absent from the scholarly literature is research on Caribbean immigrants’ willingness to report crime to the police. Relying on a sample of thirty-seven (n = 37) Caribbean immigrants from five areas in the New York City who were recruited using non-probability sampling, this study examined Caribbean immigrants’ willingness to report crime as victims and witnesses as well as factors that affect their willingness to report criminal activities to the police. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that a great majority of the participants were willing to report crime to the NYPD. However, that willingness was fettered by several factors (seriousness of the crime, fear, and safety concerns). Five major themes emanated from the participants’ narratives (safety concerns, fear, seriousness of the crime, civic duty, and attitudes of police officers), and these are discussed.