Team Will Track Pr. William's Illegal Immigration Crackdown

Without the evaluation, Corey A. Stewart, chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, said the county would have only anecdotal evidence to judge whether the policy is achieving its purpose: encouraging illegal immigrants already in the county to leave and discouraging others from coming.

"The message that we are sending about not tolerating illegal immigration, especially illegal immigrants who commit crimes, I think already that message is having an effect," Stewart (R-At Large) said. But "we will have a better understanding after a year, certainly after two, that it's working."

Stewart added that, in addition to protecting the county against racial profiling, he hopes the study will determine whether the policy is "cost-effective."

The board learned recently that the cost of the crackdown will be $6.4 million the first year, more than twice as much as estimated. The five-year cost is expected to be about $26 million.

Thomas Pulaski, the police department's project leader in charge of coordinating the effort with the research team, said the study is still in the design stages. Researchers plan to analyze police data, shadow officers on the streets and conduct interviews throughout the community. But what questions to ask and what numbers to analyze remain to be decided, he said.

For example, the team will gauge victimization rates by adding questions to the county's annual citizen satisfaction survey, but how best to word them? What is the best way to gauge if domestic violence victims are more hesitant to call police because they fear their illegal immigrant spouses will be deported?

"What are the intended and unintended impacts on the whole community?" Pulaski said. "This hasn't really been explored. We don't know."

Guterbock, who has conducted the satisfaction surveys for the past 15 years, wonders if the police department will maintain its historically high satisfaction rating. From year to year, he said, there has been very little difference between the perception of black, white and Hispanic residents, which is unusual in large jurisdictions.

Tim Carter, a professor at James Madison University and the criminologist member of the team, said his role will involve creating a 10-year base line of what policing in the county looked like before the policy and how it changes. He plans to do this by examining large sets of police data, such as calls for service, incident reports and community complaints.

"I don't have any particular question in mind that I am going in to look for," Carter said. "It's more the questions that might arise out of this broad scope of data. This policy is not strictly about policing, it's about a community. It's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out."

Pulaski said the undertaking appears to be unprecedented.

"We're breaking new ground in the country," Pulaski said. "The bottom line, when all is said and done, is this will be a blueprint for future research."