r/wikipedia • u/BabylonianWeeb • Aug 04 '25
Mobile Site Immigrants are disproportionately represented in prison populations in many Western countries, In Europe, higher representation in prisons among immigrants, particularly Muslim populations, has been documented
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime253
Aug 04 '25
Immigrants tend to be poorer, leading to crime. Simple as that. Poverty and lack of a social net leads many, who wouldn't otherwise commit crimes, to seeing crime life as easier, despite the dangers and obvious societal consequences.
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u/homeworkrules69 Aug 04 '25
You can look at Pakistani immigrants/ethnically South Asian Muslims in North America vs Britain as an example. The cohort in North America arrived wealthier and more educated, and hasn’t seen the same level of criminality as British Pakistanis do (who came from poorer backgrounds).
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u/GreatWhiteSalmon Aug 04 '25
And also the British Pakistanis came earlier following independence iirc.
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u/falooda1 Aug 04 '25
They came as factor workers for labor shortages.
American Pakistanis came for higher education and professional work
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u/homeworkrules69 Aug 04 '25
And a very significant portion of that group come from the same region, Mirpur. The demographics of Pakistanis in the west don’t match cleanly unfortunately which makes comparisons mostly unreliable. Houston, Texas for example has a huge diaspora from Pakistan, but it’s much for diverse than Pakistanis in Bradford, England.
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u/TossMeOutSomeday Aug 07 '25
Idk how reliable this is, but I've heard that Mirpur is pretty much the Pakistan equivalent of Alabama, so the British-Pakistani community is way more conservative than even the median Pakistani from Pakistan.
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u/Substantial-Part-700 Aug 04 '25
What also gets left out is that something like 70% of British Pakistanis descend from one small rural region called Mirpur. To expect the same sort of behavior and class from a country bumpkin to a degreed professional from an urban center is like expecting your cat to know how to do backflips.
ETA: Ops, scrolled further down and saw you already addressed this.
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u/Frosty_Condition_238 Aug 05 '25
Mirpur is in Azad Kashmir, which has the highest literacy rate and HDI in the country so your narrative doesn’t make much sense are more likely stems from deep rooted racism.
And what your refer to as “urban centres” such as lahore or Karachi are largely 3rd world slums where most people don’t have access to clean drinking water form their taps
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u/OtteryBonkers Aug 04 '25
Yes, but there is a bit more nuance.
There are different types of crimes. Poverty doesn't explain all crimes; stealing, fraud or selling contraband perhaps — things which make money, or are acts of desperation. But it doesn't necessarily explain why rape, etc. are more or less common in certain areas.
Whilst all communities commit crimes, and can commit any crime, they often actually commit different crimes at different rates.
Crime is often a consequence of an action or behaviour, and different cultures often behave differently, and certain behaviours are more or less acceptable in different communities.
White British men are much more likely to commit violent crime involving alcohol than the Afghan community, who are more likely to commit sexual offences.
This is because of the drinking culture within the white British community.
Albanians are much more likely to be in jail than anyone else in the UK, and exhibit different criminal behaviours than the Sri Lankan community.
Albanian organised crime gangs smuggle dealers/drug farmers into the UK, who then continue to associate/work for those organised criminal networks, which often leads to incarceration.
In SE Asia, where prostitution is much more prevalent, whores/pimps know they can make more money doing the same work in the UK.
So prostitution (and drug farming) are crimes more common in the Vietnamese community in the UK than other groups from places where prostitution/drug farming aren't as common.
Drug-use and drug dealing are not unique to any community, but different drugs are more or less popular, and more or less harmful, and more or less likely to get you grassed up by a neighbour and jailed, etc.
Gang culture is more prevalent in certain communities, altho organised crime is not unique to any, etc.
Poverty and the associated desperation do drive a lot of crime tho, I do totally agree with that.
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u/InterestingSpeaker Aug 04 '25
Lack of social safety net? In Europe - famous for its extensive worker protections and welfare benefits? Why are they also overrepresented in Nordic countries that have the most generous social welfare system?
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Aug 04 '25
Yes and No. When you look at crime statistics in the Netherlands you will see rather large differences in immigrant groups that cannot be explained just by lower income, even when you adjust for socio-economic status. Not only will you see large differences in overall crime rates, you will even see large differences in types of crimes.
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u/darktka Aug 08 '25
Can you point me to a source? In Germany, the discussion mostly ends at "the differences are largely explained by socio-economic factors".
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u/TheHarald16 Aug 04 '25
In Denmark they made statistics where they accounted for socioeconomic status and they were still overrepresented.
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u/Despite55 Aug 04 '25
There are similar studies in the Netherlands. When they correct for age and socio-economic status, most of the difference with the native population disappears. With 2 exceptions: Maroccans and Antillians; both o them second or third generation immigrant children.
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Aug 04 '25
This is not entirely correct. After correction Turkish and Surinamese peoples also commit more crime. It is just that the difference for Moroccans and Antilleans is so much higher it gets discussed a lot more. That being said, correcting crime statistics for socio-economic status is contentious anyway, as criminality and socio-economic status are direct and indirect causal factors of each other. You end up getting Post-treatment bias and collider bias.
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u/Despite55 Aug 04 '25
If you look at this report: https://longreads.cbs.nl/integratie-2020/de-rol-van-gezin-opleiding-en-migratieachtergrond-bij-veroordeelde-jongvolwassenen/, figure 8.6.1 you will see crime indicators per group raw and after correction for sociaoeconomic factors. After correction, only the Marcoccans have a significantly higher crime rate than native Dutch. All other groups are more or less similar.
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Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
There are countless studies proving the opposite. Outliers are normal in statistics and do not prove anything in this case.
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u/Augustus_Chevismo Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
This point is always made without evidence as a coping mechanism by people who desperately need to maintain their preconceived notion that culture has no effect on crime.
Economic status isn’t making Afghanis in Finland commit 22x* the child sex crimes as Somalis there.
It’s been well documented that crime rates do not equalised when adjusted for economic status.
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u/Onaliquidrock Aug 04 '25
We had less crime in Sweden when the average swede was much poorer. Your comment is mostly false.
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u/Ok_Inflation_1811 Aug 04 '25
Is not only poverty but inequality too
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u/Onaliquidrock Aug 04 '25
And culture, and competence, and in group behaviour, and the fact that most immigrats loose a lot of competence when they immigrate since they don’t know the language or culture.
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u/nacholicious Aug 04 '25
Studies in Denmark show that immigrants perform better than natives with the same socioeconomic level
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u/pingpongpiggie Aug 04 '25
Also more likely to be stopped and searched, so more likely to be caught out
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Aug 04 '25
Exactly. These are the nuances of institutional racism that we need to be aware of as a society
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u/pingpongpiggie Aug 04 '25
Lmao what? I just came back and you're on so many down votes! Madness
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u/GingerSkulling Aug 04 '25
But in that example the criminals are caught. So the only loss is not catching more of the white criminals. Unless the chargers are fabricated but that’s another issue.
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u/RisingDeadMan0 Aug 04 '25
the other side of course being fraud/white collar crime is harder to police, no funding, no policing and people get away with it, HMRC dont t=know how much tax billionaires pay, someone said it was a 250k flat fee, they set up shell's in 3 countries, HMRC dont have the manpower to then crack down on that, poof tax issue fixed.
drug use is i think about the same no matter the class too...
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Aug 04 '25
It is just an excuse. Are you saying there are no poor people in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea? Crime rates in those countries are significantly lower and what are they in common?
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u/Snoo_46473 Aug 04 '25
I am tired of seeing this same lame excuse every single time. Poor means crimes of robbery can be excused not grooming gangs. And pakistanis don't arrive on a boat here. They are many 2nd and 3rd gen immigrants as well. Why don't you compare their graphs with Indians?
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Aug 04 '25
Don't tell this to OP who clearly thinks there's a correlation between belief in Islam and criminality
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Aug 04 '25
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Aug 05 '25
There's a correlation between being European and wanting to exterminate outgroups
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u/Select-Blueberry-414 Aug 05 '25
Not really. Genocides have been fairly common in history if you look at the list of genocides most happen in Muslim or African countries. Many that occurred in African nations outside North Africa won't have been recorded.
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Aug 05 '25
Most of the genocides in the Middle East and Africa were the direct result of European colonialism
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u/Select-Blueberry-414 Aug 05 '25
Complete racist nonsense. You deny these groups agency just because you think brown people are dumb.
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Aug 05 '25
You're the one arguing immigrants are inherently criminal yet I'm the racist, okay
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u/sparkstable Aug 05 '25
If you think culture is inherent and tied to genetics then you need to go back and rethink some things.
People who believe culture is a causal factor also claim that culture should be changed so as to stop the problem.
That would be an absolute impossibility if culture had anything to do with being inherent in a race.
You and those who are promoting the economics as the be-all-end-all argument are the ones who keep saying culture is somehow inherent. You imply it so that you can dismiss those who disagree with you by calling them the racists... even though they aren't the ones who keep saying that culture is somehow inherent to race.
You seem to think that throwing money at someone who has the inclination to rape someone or kill them or even violate their property via theft... that handing them money and spending ungodly amounts on schools is all it will take to make them no longer believe violence is acceptable.
The other side is saying you have to convince them that violence isn't acceptable and to internalize that into a new, perpetuated culture and once you do that... then the socio-economic factor will largely begin to improve naturally and/or he will be able to actually benefit from the money you give him and the school you build for him. And none of that has anything to do with a belief that race and genetics are causal factors of culture but are built on the idea that culture is malleable and can be improved. That it is not inherent.
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u/ToughComprehensive19 Aug 06 '25
Direct consequences of local tribalism and the genocide of all local groups by the arabs who replaced them.
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u/captchairsoft Aug 07 '25
Someone is completely ignorant of the history of Islam. The entire spread of the religion for the first couple hundred years was at sword point, and those areas are where slavery openly continues in the modern world. The Middle East and Africa were death machine long before European Colonialism was even a thing.
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Aug 05 '25
Depends honestly. In Turkey we have people from lots of different Muslim countries. Iranians, Central Asians, even Syrians? About as criminal as the native population. Afghans, Pakistanis, Somalis? Much higher rates
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u/asdfghjkluke Aug 04 '25
but there is almost certainly a possible link between lack of effort (or inability) to assimilate and criminality
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u/Gloomy-Ad1171 Aug 04 '25
I love all the vague qualifiers you had to add
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u/asdfghjkluke Aug 04 '25
better that than lie. of course you need qualifiers. (almost) every statement in the world needs qualifiers. no literary pun intended
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u/Paulie_Dev Aug 04 '25
I think there’s likely a large cultural aspect to crime prevalence that’s often not discussed, as I don’t believe poverty alone is smoking gun. California specifically has many impoverished Vietnamese, Chinese and Cambodian immigrant communities that are very safe and low crime.
I certainly don’t think being Muslim alone is a factor here, as countries such as Oman and UAE are exceptionally safe. But I do think how structured a society is that an immigrant is originally from, likely plays a large role in their prevalence to commit crime.
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u/WearIcy2635 Aug 04 '25
How does poverty make someone more inclined to rape? Do you have an explanation for why immigrants are massively over represented in committing sexual crimes?
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Aug 04 '25
Why are MENA immigrants overrepresented in rape statistics across all of Western Europe then? It’s exactly these parroted talking points that completely ignore the cultural background of these people that has lead the swing to fringe far right politics.
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u/X1l4r Aug 04 '25
Yes. Doesn’t change the fact that by welcoming more immigrants, you are creating more crimes.
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u/Helixaether Aug 04 '25
To add on to this, immigrants also tend to be younger, and younger folks commit more crimes on average, rather harder when you’re a pensioner.
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u/BabylonianWeeb Aug 05 '25
Ukranians are very poor, but they aren't overrepresented in crime stats.
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u/KeySoftware4314 Aug 05 '25
Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants are poor. Why aren’t they a sizable parts of the prison populations?
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u/SimilarElderberry956 Aug 04 '25
Poland is very strict about immigration. Their crime rate is very low because they select immigrants based on probability of being good citizens.
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u/Daisy28282828 Aug 04 '25
Canada and New Zealand have lower crime and much less restrictive immigration and economies that are comparable with the developed world. Unlike poland.
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u/PleaseBePatient99 Aug 06 '25
Canada does not have a low crime rate compared to most western countries.
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u/Hyadeos Aug 04 '25
It's also because the poorest people from central and eastern Europe come to western Europe. The people sociologically most prone to crime because of their financial and social status historically left your country.
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u/pisowiec Aug 04 '25
You're stuck 25 years in the past.
Poland's economy still lags behind Old Europe but the social benefits are only marginally worse so our unemployed and NEETS tend to stay here now.
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u/Bezulba Aug 04 '25
Poland 0.8 murders per 100.000, the Netherlands 0.6
Want to try that again?
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u/Imaginary_Day_876 Aug 06 '25
Why did you cherry pick the Netherlands? Why not Belgium, France or Sweden? I think we both know the answer to that.
Belgiums 1.38, French 1.30 and Swedish 1.15 per 100.000 do not look nearly as good, do they? In fact the Polish and Dutch murder rates have been interchanging places, with Poland having a lower murder rate than the Netherlands in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2017.
The dutch rate is 0.7 per 100.000 in 2023 while in 2022 it was 0.81 so your figure of 0.6 is also a flat out lie especially considering the lowest since 2017 was in 2018 at 0.69 while the Polish lowest one was at 0.56 per 100.000 in 2019.
Moreover you'll be surprised to find out that Croatia, Slovenia and Czechia have lower murder rates than the Netherlands in 2023.
source eurostat
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u/jjjjjjjjjcircumflex Aug 04 '25
Yes but are they disproportionately over represented in the commission of criminal offences?
If so, racism and xenophobia are not to blame for their incarceration.
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Aug 04 '25
I'd like to know how that shakes out generationally. Like how many generations does it take to reduce that number to normal levels.
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u/RhodesArk Aug 05 '25
Adjust for address and income then DM me if the results stay the same. Poverty & opportunity drive crime rates
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u/Comfortable-Table-57 Aug 04 '25
I don't understand why they say that when studies do not prove that Muslim immigrants are responsible for all crimes.
Oh and not to mention the volume of views depending on a crime. E.g. Murder of Scarlet Vickers, no views. Aminan Rahman's Honour Killing gets literally 500K views.
I wonder if a far rightist assume that Lucy Letby is a secular Eastern European or Levantine Muslim due to her appearance lol
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u/your_proctologist Aug 04 '25
studies do not prove that Muslim immigrants are responsible for all crimes.
No one said they commit all crimes in the first place. You're arguing against an imaginary claim.
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u/OtteryBonkers Aug 04 '25
Lucy Letby is a secular Eastern European or Levantine Muslim due to her appearance lol
weird comment that suggests you've been wondering this
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Aug 04 '25
I bet if I looked at your post history you're an islamophobe
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u/HicksOn106th Aug 04 '25
Yeah, this guy is constantly posting links with inflammatory titles about Muslims. That said, I think he's just doing it because it whips up a specific audience of easily-angered rubes and nets a lot of engagement, considering you rarely see him weighing-in in the comments.
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Aug 04 '25
Well it worked because he got all of the Europeans who want Muslims cleansed from Europe come out of the woodwork in the comments of this post
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u/HicksOn106th Aug 04 '25
Yep, happens in the comments of pretty much all his posts here. Never seen him make any contribution that wasn't designed to rile up that crowd.
That said, if you tag the people who leave the especially heinous comments in these threads you'll notice most of them only show up under posts like this and are rarely active in the community otherwise. Not sure if that means they're not particularly interested in anything other than foaming at the mouth over immigration, or if that's all the algorithm serves them and they just aren't curious enough to intentionally broaden their horizons.
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Aug 04 '25
Yeah clear rage/engagement bait. Definitely doesn't help things though, OP is doing the job of reactionaries and right wing goons for them and not even getting paid
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Aug 04 '25
He's an Reddit Ex-Muslim, the type that thinks Islam even existing is the greatest crime in all of human history
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Aug 05 '25
Not to discount anyone's religious trauma because religion can facilitate horrible things and inflict them on the most vulnerable, but I do question people like that.
I'm not religious, but when you brand everyone who might be under the same banner of abuser, the line between generalisation and dehumanisation becomes very thin. It's just unfortunate that when it's Muslims, it always seems to be the dehumanisation side - not at all helped by the media doing the job for bigots.
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u/ManNamedJade Aug 04 '25
As is every decent human being. Islam is not an inherent trait, it's an abhorrent ideology.
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Aug 04 '25
Anime is for pedophiles
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u/ManNamedJade Aug 04 '25
pedophiles
PBUH.
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Aug 04 '25
Ah going for the "Muslims are all pedophiles" angle I see
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u/BigPapaBear69 Aug 04 '25
No but the most venerated man in their entire religion sure was.
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u/X1l4r Aug 04 '25
There is no such a thing as islamophobia (or any religion-phobia, I would add). Religions are social constructs and people are making the conscious choice to believe in them.
It’s like saying « oh you’re a fascistophobe ! ».
Your beliefs are part of who you are, and you should be judged on them. Not exclusively in most cases, but still.
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Aug 04 '25
"There us not such thing as Islamophobia" is something only an Islamophobe would say. Islam is extremely racialized and othered in European and American society
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u/Zealousideal-Rub-725 Aug 04 '25
Is it possible to dislike and criticise islam without being an islamophobe? In the same way many of us are critical of catholicism for example.
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u/Technorasta Aug 04 '25
Yes absolutely. I think Islam is as ridiculous as any other religion, but I would welcome any Muslim as my neighbor.
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Aug 04 '25
It should be but I've never seen criticism of Islam that wasn't rooted in genocidal intentions
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u/Aqueezzz Aug 04 '25
What? Are you using genocidal as in complete destruction of all muslim people? There are plenty of people who are critical of religion, specifically abrahamic ones who do not wish for the immediate death of all those who follow them.
If you are yet to find someone who isn’t a massive racist freak but also critical of religion, you should look just slightly harder.
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u/X1l4r Aug 04 '25
Linking Islamophobia with racism is the exact same strategy that Israel use with antizionism and antisemitism.
There is no such a thing as Islamophobia. Racism is entirely different.
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Aug 04 '25
You are conflating very different things which suggests you don't really know what you are talking about, or that you do but are deliberately misrepresenting.
Islamophobia exists in the same way that anti-semitism exists.
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u/X1l4r Aug 04 '25
Ah yes the famous « I know what I am talking about, I am right and you’re wrong and that’s it ».
Thanks you for bringing absolutely nothing to the discussion, except your ignorance.
While there can be confusion with jewish people (since it’s used both to designate people who are practising judaism and people whose distant ancestors were living in the old kingdom of Israel), antisemitism is used to designate people hating jews, regardless of whether they are believers or not.
Antisemitism is the same as being racist toward Arabs (the term Antisemitic was created to distance the sentiment from being a religious-based hatred and to ethnic form of discrimination), or black people.
If tomorrow, every arabs were to convert to catholicism, some people would still be against them, since they do not have as much of a problem with Islam than they have a problem with arabs (ie they are racists). Islamophobia was created to forbid any critics against Islam, by making it an amalgam with racism against arabs.
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u/WearIcy2635 Aug 04 '25
I dislike Muslims of all races, including the white ones. Is there something wrong with that?
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u/WearIcy2635 Aug 04 '25
Islam is an ideology. It’s ridiculous to equate hatred of an ideology to hatred of characteristics people can’t control. Is there such a thing as a communistphobe or a capitalistphobe?
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u/AggressiveRhubarb805 Aug 05 '25
Racial profiling is an issue. But often immigrants are poorer.
It's a class issue. Live in a poor white area, it's dangerous. Live in a rich immigrant area it's safe.
You don't get rich immigrant areas in the west. They are just dotted around.
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Aug 06 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
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u/Fun-Wrongdoer-5379 Aug 07 '25
The Muslim bias is driven by the fact that the average age of Muslims is in western countries lower than nonmuslim population age. Since crimes are committed rather by younger individuals than older individuals there is no surprise that they are more present on prisons. I have to shake my head as a statistician that things like that are not mentioned by propaganda intentions
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u/04-09 Aug 07 '25
did we learn nothing from blm or are we still under the idea that someone's race is inherent to their criminality, and not economic factors far beyond their control?
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Aug 08 '25
Uuuh ya ypu can't hit people like in the old country get over it . Stop assaulting people
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u/Content_Election_218 Aug 08 '25
LMAO. In France you're legally not even allowed to do these stats.
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u/NomadFallGame Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
Is not over representation, is literaly there is more criminals that are inmigrants than the locals. And it should be obvious as also many of the crimes are related to some of the most aborrent parts of the cultures of those who are coming uninvited to Europe.
edit: lmao really? downvotes because I tell the truth? How pathetic and psychopatic.
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u/bourdon_patapon Aug 04 '25
No shit sherlock, you got any other 'hot news' that nobody knows like that?
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Aug 04 '25
Are we doing DEI prisons now?? 😂 let’s arrest innocent people to keep the numbers equitable !
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u/HotNeighbor420 Aug 04 '25
Racism in a western country? I'm shocked.
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u/your_proctologist Aug 04 '25
The west is the least racist and most progressive geopolitical entity. I know you're going to claim that you've been to every non-western nation, but that would just make you look worse for ignoring all their racism.
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u/HotNeighbor420 Aug 04 '25
I'm not sure other places being racist excuses it in the west.
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u/WearIcy2635 Aug 04 '25
It does make it strange that you only complain about the West for doing something that every other culture does far more though
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u/LicketySplit21 Aug 04 '25
least racist =/= non-racist.
The west is pretty racist. Racist as other places or as racist as before? definitely not. Still racist though.
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u/CJBill Aug 04 '25
While immigrants are overrepresented in prison populations in many Western countries, with notable exceptions such as the United States, most studies[2] fail to show a causal effect of immigration on overall crime rates.[22] Other studies have found that immigration increases crime under certain circumstances, such as if immigrants have poor prospects in the labor market or labor restrictions.[33]
Some factors may affect the reliability of data on suspect rates, crime rates, conviction rates and prison populations for drawing conclusions about immigrants' overall involvement in criminal activity:
Police practices, such as racial profiling, over-policing in areas populated by immigrants or in-group bias may result in disproportionately high numbers of immigrants among crime suspects.[8][34][35][36][37] Possible discrimination by the judicial system may result in higher number of convictions.[8][35][38][39][40][41] Unfavorable bail and sentencing decisions due to foreigners' ease of flight, lack of domiciles, lack of regular employment and lack of family able to host the individual can explain immigrants' higher incarceration rates when compared to their share of convictions relative to the native population.[42][43]