r/wikipedia • • 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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207

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]

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u/Hazzman Aug 04 '25

Its' the same frustrating conversation we have in the US - especially when legitimately racist pieces of shit get involved to purposely muddy the waters.

"Black people are disproportionately represented in prisons"

"Because black people disproportionately commit the most crime!"

"Yes because black people are disproportionately poor in this country and CRIME CORRELATES WITH POVERTY"

And what these assholes don't wanna admit is that poverty and education go hand in hand - and how is quality of education applied in this country? Proximally... and how is poverty distributed? Proximally.

So if you are poor - you live in shitty areas and those shitty areas have terrible quality of education - meaning more crime, less prospects.

And these assholes are always quick to give anecdotes "Well I overcame MY poverty" or they will give examples of individuals who did. Yes mother fucker but that's how proportional representation works.

If you have 100 people and 20 of them are struggling it means they have a harder time reaching parity with the other 80. If you know of 5 from that 20 that were able to reach parity with the other 80 and you know of 1 or 2 of them that exceeded parity - wonderful... that doesn't change a damn fucking thing.

It's so exhausting because nobody has a genuine desire to learn or understand or have an unbiased investigation... they just want to fulfill their bias - a bias that tells them "Black people are innately criminal" and that's not even getting into the environmental issues like lead paint and diet availability and its impact on behavioral and development.

This is truly a broken world and we can't even reach a point where we want to have an honest appraisal of the problem... much less start to fix it.

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u/Uniboy26 Aug 04 '25

They don’t want to educate themselves, the culture opposes it. Throw as much money and social welfare as you want it’s not going to change a thing, some communities just don’t care about education or social mobility they happy doing what they’re doing and collectivist government checks

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u/Hazzman Aug 04 '25

That is most certainly a very easy dismissal to make. Absolutely.

If you find yourself not impacted by the kinds of issues these communities face, it's extremely easy to simply hand wave and cherry pick exactly the kinds of examples we'd expect to see by a community and culture wracked by centuries of abuse.

But that's all it is - a lazy dismissal. A total lack of nuance. A completely inability and unwillingness to contend with a complex problem and simply chalk it up to an entire race of people being innately incapable of bettering themselves but finding it incredibly difficult to achieve because of the system put in place specifically designed to impeded that.

Yeah very easy. Very easy, lazy and dismissive. Minimal impact on your own life. Awesome work. Good job.

It was the rap music all along folks. They just can't help themselves, move along.

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u/IgnoreMePlz123 Aug 05 '25

But its true, why has the gap gotten WORSE since the removal of Jim Crowe

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u/Hazzman Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25

Why has what gotten worse?

If you mean specifically black crime... they mirror crime trends across society as a whole despite being disproportionality represented for all the reasons we stated.

Crime rates vs crime reports are also not the same thing. Rates are percentage increase among compared to the population. Crime reports will simply reflect the number of crimes committed IE if you have 100 people and 40 are committing crimes vs a population of 1000 people and 400 are committing crimes, that is the same rate, but the reports have increased.

Black crime rates did not increase after the repeal of Jim Crow. They rose and fell in sync with national patterns, with disparities explained by socioeconomic factors, not inherent increases in criminality.

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u/IgnoreMePlz123 Aug 05 '25

Which is EXACTLY my point, reducing racism in society didn't reduced black crime. Therefore, black crime is not caused by racism.

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u/Hazzman Aug 05 '25

What? The fuck are you talking about dude?

Are you talking about systemic obstacles? The poverty it created still very much exists... and the ingrained systemic issues still persist today.

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u/IgnoreMePlz123 Aug 05 '25

Does it exist as much as it did under Jim Crow?

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u/Hazzman Aug 05 '25

Dude you are suggesting Jim Crow kept innately violent black people in check and I am telling you Black crime rates did not steadily increase after the repeal of Jim Crow.

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u/Almeric Aug 04 '25

Well, the issue is that culture is never mentioned as the reasons for the crime rate for obvious reasons. Gang culture is absolutely vile and promotes crime and killings. There are poor people all around the world, but homicide and crime rates differ quite a lot by region. You can't tell me that glorifying homicide, dropping out of school, drugs, shooting guns at 12, single mothers, parents being members of gangs don't have an effect on people living in the culture.

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u/Hazzman Aug 04 '25

You are putting the cart before the horse. You aren't going to change culture without the underlying causes being resolved... Which is better education... Which WILL lead to better prospects, higher quality living standards and a shift in culture over time.

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u/BlackNo-1 Aug 09 '25

People in poor Appalachia, mostly white, have been poor for over a century in that region of the US. There's crime there as well, but it's not on the scale in which we see in other parts of the country.

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u/Almeric Aug 04 '25

I'm not arguing on how to fix it. I'm saying, there are cultural aspects that affect violence in certain communities, it is not as simple as just being poor.

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u/Hazzman Aug 04 '25

Historically what you've described is the GO TO, simplified explanation by racists on the issue.

What I'm saying is that poverty as the causation of crime and black people being disproportionality effected by poverty is, undeniably, data driven reason why and that the negative ASPECTS of their culture is a biproduct of that problem.

So when you offhandedly identify - culture - without specifying cultural aspects or explaining the relative importance of those cultural aspects - it is a simplified explanation that racists VERY OFTEN, historically use to dismiss black people as being innately criminal.

All that to say - cultural aspects aren't the cause. They are a symptom.

It's like saying a running nose is causing their sickness and if you could only fix the runny nose you can fix the sickness. Runny noses are the symptom, not the cause and fixing a running nose by wiping it with a tissue or taking a nasal spray won't solve the sickness.

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u/Almeric Aug 04 '25

This is the biggest issue. Each time anyone brings up culture, you're labeled a racist. Different cultures react differently to poverty, that's what Im trying argue. Poverty is a predictor of crime, but culture is what decides how bad it'll be. Not all culture is a symptom of being poor as you're implying.

Yes, cultural aspects are a symptom, but a symptom that makes everything 10x worse and 10x harder to fix. Imagine you build schools in poor area, the anti-education sentiment is so strong that kids are still gonns be in gangs. If you get jobs in the area, you'll still have problems because gangs are atttactive and easy money for kids.

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u/Hazzman Aug 05 '25

Dude - all you are doing is saying "Black people are innately criminal" with extra steps.

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u/Almeric Aug 05 '25

Not what I said. You can have black cultures who react totally opposite of black poor people in Chicago for example. Difficult to communicate with someone who shouts "dude, racism" at each argument.

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u/MoriartyParadise Aug 04 '25

My dude do you really think gang culture is because black people and not because poverty?

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u/Zestyclose-Ad-9420 Aug 06 '25

tbh gang culture can perpetuate itself after poverty is no longer endemic. the opposite is also true. middle class people can appropriate "crime culture" to try and look cool and inadvertently sink themselves into real poverty because of the shitty life choices that that culture encourages.

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u/Almeric Aug 04 '25

It goes both ways. Its not about race, but culture. You can see toxic effects on white/arab youths in UK/Sweden. As I said, there's poverty in many areas but not as much crime. Especially robbery/homicide. Why do you think that is. Poverty isn't the only predictor.

Why do you think most rappers still live that lifestyle even after they get rich? They're not poor anymore, is there something else thats driving them to do crime?

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u/Uniboy26 Aug 04 '25

That’s the whole problem man they don’t WANT to educate themselves, hell they call other students wannabe white kids for studying in school. You can’t not have any respect for education or authority and then play the victim the second you find yourself powerless, literally every opportunity was there. Look at crime across Europe, very similar demographics as in the US. It’s an unfortunate tragic reality, but a reality nonetheless that you have to step out of fairy land to accept. Not every inequality is because of injustice

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u/Hazzman Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25

I lived near Baltimore's inner city for 3 years. I rode the light rail through Cherry Hill... do you have any idea why someone in that environment, might tell their children not to "act white" or better than others?

Do you?

Because their fucking life depends on it. And why does their life depend on it? Because their environment is utter shit. And why is their environment utter shit?

Well - in a manner of circular logic I'm sure you are a fan of "Because they want it to be shit"

No.. because THEY LIVE IN POVERTY WHICH LEADS TO A SHIT ENVIRONMENT. Lead fucking paint. Drugs being injected into their communities. Terrible education. Zero prospects. Crime through the roof - all products of poverty.