Immigration and crime refers to perceived or actual relationships between crime and immigration.
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The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009), a review of studies of correlates with crime, states that most studies on immigrants have found higher rates of crime. However, this varies greatly depending on the country of origin with immigrants from some regions having lower crime rates than the indigenous population.[1]
A "new anti-immigrant" movement has become apparent in some European countries, especially the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, during the early 21st century. The issue of immigrant crime plays an important role in the political debate in these countries.[2]
Immigrants are overrepresented in Sweden's crime statistics. During the period 1997-2001, 25% of the almost 1,520,000 offences were committed by people born abroad, while almost 20% were committed by Swedish-born people with a foreign background. [3]
In Switzerland, 69.7% of prison population had no Swiss citizenship, compared to 22.1% of total resident population (as of 2008). The figure of arrests by residence status is not usually made public. As in 1997 the conviction rate of Swiss citizens fell below 50% for the first time, a special report was compiled by the Federal Department of Justice and Police (published in 2001) which for the year 1998 found an arrest rate per 1000 adult population of 2.3 for Swiss citizens, 4.2 for legally resident aliens and 32 for asylum seekers. 21% of arrests made concerned individuals with no residence status, who were thus either sans papiers or "crime tourists" without any permanent residence in Switzerland.[4]
The term Ausländerkriminalität ("foreigner criminality") since the 1990s has become a politically charged term, with the populist "black sheep" campaign for the "initiative for the extradition of criminal foreigners" of the Swiss People's Party making international headlines in September 2007.
In April 2010, the director of the Federal Office for Migration (BFM), Alard du Bois-Reymond, issued a statement on the large number of unfounded requests for asylum by nationals of Nigeria in particular. Du Bois-Reymond said that 99.5% of asylum seekers of Nigerian origin were abusing the asylum system, entering Switzerland with the intention of pursuing petty crime and drug dealing.[5] The Nigerian ambassador to Switzerland, Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, objected to du Boi-Reymond's statement as an undue generalization.[6]
It was reported in 2007 that more than one-fifth of crime in London was committed by immigrants.[7] A 2008 study found that the crime rate of Eastern European immigrants was the same as that of the indigenous population.[8]
The Handbook of Crime Correlates states that unlike studies outside the US, a majority of studies in the US have found lower crime rates among immigrants than among non-immigrants. Again, the country of origin may be more important than immigrant status itself.[1]
The Center for Immigration Studies in a 2009 report argued that "New government data indicate that immigrants have high rates of criminality, while older academic research found low rates. The overall picture of immigrants and crime remains confused due to a lack of good data and contrary information."[9] This view is disputed by Tony Waters and others.[1] who point out that some studies show that immigrants in the United States are often associated with lower levels of crime than native born.
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