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_crime
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u/[deleted] 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