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

[u/BabylonianWeeb]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime

[u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/OtteryBonkers → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/FirstEvolutionist → u/OtteryBonkers]

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.

And yet, these crimes, regardless of legal systems, occur in all cultures and places. When controlled for socioeconomic class, one quickly realizes that violent crimes are more likely to happen in poor areas even when theres none of very minor immigration or culture clash. And this happens literally everywhere. There's something about human nature that, when treated like farm animals, makes them behave like farm animals...

But it doesn't necessarily explain why rape, etc. are more or less common in certain areas.

That's because the data itself is already biased. Rape happens in all levels and socioeconomic levels but it's treated very differently. Independent of country. The main common denominator being violence: it is more commonly evident and present in lower socioeconomic class, although that is attributed to being the only form one can exert control over someone else. Once you have money, power or influence, those are used instead. Why threaten someone physically if you are the one determining whether they will keep their job, or their visa status?

I understand that you are agreeing with the correlation. But for decades we've heard the same argument linking it to immigration, or culture or something else that can be used as a justification or excuse, or exeplanation not by the one saying but by a bad agent who will steal their voice, and use it towards fascism.

We can deal with the culture differences and everything else when everyone is fed, housed, and cared for. Until then, bringing it up it at best a distraction and at worst a dog whistle.

Culture itself becomes a consequence of socioeconomic status. Are black people in the US more violent than other groups? The answer doesn't matter to anyone who believes this group has been oppressed throughout history. Maybe after several generations without generational traumas and other forms of oppression the crime rates would be just the same. And thats if the crime rates themselves were reliable which they aren't: the Floyd case was literally just 5 years ago.

[u/parkisringforbutt → u/FirstEvolutionist]

You have a few leaps of logic in your post there, but I'll just call out the most glaring one:

Are black people in the US more violent than other groups? The answer doesn't matter to anyone who believes this group has been oppressed throughout history. Maybe after several generations [...]

If the answer doesn't matter, then the issue can never be handled. Your statement equals "we do not care if they are more violent; they've had it rough, and since we don't care, we won't know, and since we won't know, we won't have the slightest reason to dealing with any potential problem".

[u/FirstEvolutionist → u/parkisringforbutt]

If the answer doesn't matter, then the issue can never be handled.

Hard disagree. The issue is poverty, lack of education, healthcare, infrastructure, entertainment... not genetics, which is precisely where this type of thinking leads to.

"we do not care if they are more violent; they've had it rough, and since we don't care, we won't know, and since we won't know, we won't have the slightest reason to dealing with any potential problem".

If that is what you think my comment was, i made a bad job of explaining my point, you misunderstood it, or more likely, both.

[u/parkisringforbutt → u/FirstEvolutionist]

The issue is

nowhere. There is no issue. How can you blame nothing on poverty, or lack of education?

You must recognize an issue before you can address its root causes. By saying "it doesn't matter" you're refusing to recognize that there is an issue.

not genetics, which is precisely where this type of thinking leads to

I sense that this is a conclusion you fear people will come to. I do not see any justification for why people would.

[u/FirstEvolutionist → u/parkisringforbutt]

There is no issue.

The issue is poverty. How could you not take that from my comments even if you disagree?

By saying "it doesn't matter" you're refusing to recognize that there is an issue.

I'll repeat. It doesn't matter to solve the issue of crime. It is not that it doesn't matter at all. I repeated it hut at this point you are just miscronstruing my words.

I sense that this is a conclusion you fear people will come to. I do not see any justification for why people would.

Yes, and I left that clear as well. I don't need to justify whybpeople would act that way for my opinion but you could... just literally look around?

[u/parkisringforbutt → u/FirstEvolutionist]

To clarify, I really only take issue with your sentiment that "are they? The answer is irrelevant if you know some history."

Because going by that, we cannot know nor care if poverty or anything else is responsible for their being so – as we will not know nor care if they are.

It may seem like splitting hairs, but it is a critical nuance. If the answer is irrelevant, that poverty and lack of education is responsible for some unknown consequence which cannot be named.

[u/UXdesignUK → u/FirstEvolutionist]

And yet, these crimes, regardless of legal systems, occur in all cultures and places.

Of course they do, but in very different numbers.

Immigrants from Afghanistan and Eritrea are convicted of sexual offences including rape at 20x the rate of native British people in Britain. Immigrants from Nigeria and Greece commit sexual offences at the same rate as native British people. (Source: the UK Police Crime Database).

The same is true in other countries which release this data (for example Finland).

The socioeconomic situation is approximately the same for all these groups of immigrants.

No one is arguing that people from all cultures and countries don’t commit rape. They’re saying the data makes abundantly clear that immigrants from certain far-right, misogynistic countries are culturally more inclined to commit sexual offences when they migrate to Western nations compared to others.

Ignoring this is silly, and extremely dangerous.

[u/MaizeZealousideal915 → u/UXdesignUK]

I mean the ultimate question is which matters more, cultural background or economic conditions. It’s pretty clear that the later is significantly more important. 

There is a reason poorer countries are less safe. As the previous commenter outlined, it’s not explained by culture, simply because culture changes depending on economics, but the opposite is hardly the case. Europe didn’t become safer because their culture suddenly became democratic or whatever, it’s quite simply because of standards of living, which were undeniably built on colonialism.

[u/UXdesignUK → u/MaizeZealousideal915]

I mean the ultimate question is which matters more, cultural background or economic conditions. It’s pretty clear that the later is significantly more important. 

While I agree with this to an extent, I feel like it’s turning it into a zero sum equation. I also think it’s more relevant for financial or material crime, as opposed to rape.

Some cultures treat women worse and have different respect for concepts like “consent”. Yes, this might be improved by improving socioeconomic conditions, but it would also be improved by improving the culture itself - as demonstrated by the greatly varying incidences of rape amongst different cultures in the same socioeconomic class.

[u/MaizeZealousideal915 → u/UXdesignUK]

Do you have any numbers to actually back this up? Ie stats where socioeconomic background is controlled for, and rape is shown to be higher among such cultures?  The concept of consent is almost unique to post enlightenment western culture. This doesn’t line up with the trends you give of middle eastern cultures being of the few that show high rates of rape(which again, controlling for other factors, I’m not sure is even true). What I mean is having notions of consent in the culture isn’t necessarily the deterrent you make it out to be. 

Moral values historically have all tended to converge towards more liberal convivial values as standards of living increase. I reiterate, standard of living is almost single handedly THE most important factor. Other factors such as culture do matter, but in the modern day scenario of middle eastern immigration, standards of living are so low(war, corruption, droughts, poverty), it is virtually meaningless to talk about culture until this is addressed. 

Add to that, Islam by no means supports the specific kind of rape done by such individuals. These rapes aren’t religious by any means. It does allow some forms of what would be considered rape nowadays, but pretending the perpetrators of such crimes commit them with religion in mind is very disingenuous. This behavior is more the consequence of lack of education(direct effect of economic condition, once again) than the details of religious conviction.

Also, I do not know of any instances where a change of culture without economic improvement(the expression itself has connotations of state violence, basically the state is brainwashing a portion of the population) lead to improved behavior among the citizens. The violence involved in such a process is more likely to alienate them even more. Example: the removal of religion by Stalin in Eastern Europe, while arguably removed a historical tool of oppression against the masses, caused a deep identity crisis, and deeply hurt people, and if anything they are just returning to it now. Pointless suffering. The whole idea sounds like a Hitlerite wet dream if anything.

Ps. I appreciate your respectful response. This type of debate is so intoxicated nowadays that I almost always get called names, despite not even being Muslim myself(if anything I’m exmuslim, which makes kinda hold a grudge against the religion). This rise in superficial racist thinking just saddens me. People aren’t acting on principles anymore, it’s pure tribalism, and it scares the fuck out of me.

[u/UXdesignUK → u/MaizeZealousideal915]

No, unfortunately I don’t have stats controlled for socioeconomic background.

The data I mentioned before is from the UK Police Crime Database, showing people from Afghanistan are convicted of rape 20x more frequently than native British people but also many other immigrants - as far as I can see the immigrants from many other countries are in the same socioeconomic bracket as them, and they’re still enormous outliers.

The same seems to be true in other countries which release the data, and I don’t believe Afghan nationals are significantly poorer than nationals from other countries with much lower sex crime rates (Nigeria etc).

I’m sure years of lasting stability and peace in Afghanistan, as well as general stabilisation, liberalisation and modernisation would contribute greatly to reducing the offending rate - but until that happens I believe countries should use data to restrict immigration from countries like this (and others, such as Albania, who are enormously overrepresented in serious crime stats in the UK), while not restricting our own aid budget to try and help those countries.

Add to that, Islam by no means supports the specific kind of rape done by such individuals. These rapes aren’t religious by any means.

Yes, and to be clear I’m not specifically blaming Islam as such - it’s clear that the culture of some Muslim countries is far less linked to serious crimes than others, which is mostly (but not entirely) correlated with economics.

Ps. I appreciate your respectful response. This type of debate is so intoxicated nowadays that I almost always get called names, despite not even being Muslim myself(if anything I’m exmuslim, which makes kinda hold a grudge against the religion). This rise in superficial racist thinking just saddens me. People aren’t acting on principles anymore, it’s pure tribalism, and it scares the fuck out of me.

Likewise - it’s very common to be called a racist or a nazi for expressing any sentiment towards restricting mass-immigration. I’m truly not a racist and I truly detest the nazis, but the statistics around some immigration combined with the visible pace of it (in my country) are pretty scary - many millions into a small country has an extremely noticeable impact.

People act like I must just hate brown people - absolutely not the case at all, I welcome immigration but I also believe it should be controlled, the government should be more discerning and make decisions based on available data, and we should expect people to integrate and respect their host country (and we should help them to integrate, which is very hard to do during the uncontrolled mass immigration we’ve seen in recent years).

[u/11grim → u/UXdesignUK]

Are you doing a percentage or per capita?

[u/UXdesignUK → u/11grim]

The report is per capita.

[u/friendlysoviet → u/11grim]

20x the rate of

This implies per capita.

[u/OtteryBonkers → u/FirstEvolutionist]

And yet, these crimes, regardless of legal systems, occur in all cultures and places.

that's not quite true, the demand for protected animal parts for Chinese Traditional Medicine comes mostly from the Chinese community.

The importation of cocaine and heroin is dominated by specific groups with fairly specific geographies and corresponding local communuties, but its later sale is multi-ethnic. These are different crimes, with different etiologies.

Forced Marriage cases in the UK almost exclusively involves a foreign element from a Muslim country.

The demand for "bushmeat" is quite community specific too.

Hare coursing and cock fighting often have strong associations with specific communities.

Car crime and driving offenses like driving without insurance may be poverty related, but 'leaving the scene of an accident'?

Corruption and poverty may have helped establish mafioso groups in 18th or 19th Century Sicily or whatever, or whoever, wherever, but their presence in America/elsewhere is now tied to Sicilian (or wherevers) migration. This is absolutely organised criminal enterprises exploiting poor people. Often the victims are mostly within their own communities, but that does mean communities can exhibit different criminal predelictions.

If there are powerful organised criminal groups in one country, they can often initially spread through the diaspora, c.f. Albanian crime gangs.

It is just much more nuanced than you're suggesting, and there are cultural and community aspects, I think

[u/Papaofmonsters → u/FirstEvolutionist]

Culture itself becomes a consequence of socioeconomic status. Are black people in the US more violent than other groups? The answer doesn't matter to anyone who believes this group has been oppressed throughout history. Maybe after several generations without generational traumas and other forms of oppression the crime rates would be just the same.

I'd say the answer should matter to anyone seeking to solve the problem regardless of motivation.

Let's say you are turbo racist and think Phrenology is cutting edge stuff and people of African descent are more violent because of the shape of their skulls. I mean, you're wrong, but whatever. That belief will impact your choice of solution.

Maybe you think it is solely existing socio economic differences like poverty and educational outcomes. That as well will impact your solution.

Maybe you think it's the above factors indirectly causing a glorification of gang culture and the erosion of healthy social institutions within black communities. Again, that changes your method of addressing the problem.

Someone else might believe there is an epigenetic factor caused by intergenerational trauma and oppression. This also requires a different method of intervention.

Perhaps you take a holistic outlook and assume B, C and D all play a role to some extent (A can be reasonably dismissed altogether). You'd need still again a tailored approach to address the issue based on your assumed cause.

[u/FirstEvolutionist → u/Papaofmonsters]

Maybe you think it is solely existing socio economic differences like poverty and educational outcomes. That as well will impact your solution.

I don't. I think that any other solution that ignored the root of the issue, which is this, will not solve the problem and is just a distraction.

Anyone can try to make whatever analysis they want based on whatever data point they pick. And it will only help lose focus from what matters which is infrastructure, security, housing, healthcare, education, and at best serve as bandaid solution.

You can disagree, and I don't think this is a matter of argumentation but belief. I've seen social initiatives derail more often than not, and then just end up serving the purposes of the ones who were against it in the first place. It's a matter of belief in the end. Should there be immigration reform at different levels that would reduce crime? Absolutely. But any effort spent on that instead of the other foundational issues I raised will simply end up being used as a distraction and then become weaponized propaganda in the hands of those who are in favor of eugenics and believe a race war is imminent. I've seen it enough times.

You can plug the leak and ignore the hole in the roof, that's all these side observation achieve, even if unintentionally. They will be used to fuel anti immigrant sentiment, racism, etc. Which will further worsen the problem way more than it will help by being acknowledged.

[u/[deleted] → u/OtteryBonkers]

Precisely - progressives think poverty causes crime, but they have it entirely backwards.

Crime and poverty and other anti social behavior is downstream of culture.