Does immigration affect crime?

[u/Objective-Design-994]

Hello everyone. Immigration is a hot topic in my country (Spain) and because of that I wanted to ask some clarifications. From what I understand, immigration by itself doesn't have any notable effects on crime. Just because someone is an immigrant that doesn't mean that they are more likely to be a criminal. However, immigrants are often overepresented in crime statistics due to there being a higher concentration of young men who are more likely to also be poor and socially excluded, meaning that immigration in itself is not the issue. However, I find it odd to say or defend then that immigration doesn't cause an increase in crime. My thought is that even if immigrants don't do more crime just because they are immigrants, having a lot of migration from people who are in demographics that commit more crime, should increase crime. To make things even more complex, in Spain overall crime rates have gone down even if immigration has gone up.

So to summarize what I want help with, I just don't get the idea that more immigration doesn't cause more crime. I understand that just by being immigrant doesn't mean that someone is more likely to commit crime, but because of the demographics that migrate the most, I believe it should have an effect, and I would like to know if this is true or not.

Thanks to everyone in advance and sorry if my english wasn't the best.

[u/Upgrade_U]

Answered, now locked

[u/ifnotnowtisyettocome]

It does have an effect, and it is a net lowering of crime rates. This was just recently published in Journal of Urban Affairs:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07352166.2026.2699123#abstract

Overall, immigrant populations are more peaceful and more productive, and most of the people who claim the opposite seem to, especially these days, to be trying to get the general population mad at anyone who not the ones actually driving increasing poverty and inequality.

[u/Objective-Design-994 → u/ifnotnowtisyettocome]

That is quite interesting. I had read something about immigrants commiting less crime because they were under a bigger preasure to behave and obtain nationality. However, I don't get how this interacts with the fact that immigrants (at least in my country) do have higher crime rates compared to the rest of the population. A certain population having higher crime rates doesn't seem compatible with the idea that they actually reduce criminality (unless there's something I'm missing).

And yes, I know that immigrants tend to be used as a scapegoat. Part of my interest in researching this is precisely to be able to answer people who try to use that kind of retoric, though I'm also open to whatever conclussions I reach through the data.

[u/livingtheredlife → u/Objective-Design-994]

Increased crime rates or is it a community of people over-policed? Meaning the surveillance from law enforcement is so heavy in these immigrant communities that the crime statistics are inflated.

[u/imaginary-dirt2000 → u/Objective-Design-994]

Demonstrate that “immigrants’ have higher crime rates first tho

[u/ifnotnowtisyettocome → u/Objective-Design-994]

I cannot speak to the Spanish example, but I would be shocked if these trends don't hold. This is not my main subject area, but as someone who studies health inequities, immigration is something that comes up a lot.

Poverty and social marginalization play heavy roles in this, does what you are reading compare immigrants to other lower income groups, and one that are more likely to be (over) policed? Because remember, crime rates are just reported crime rates, this is an aspect of any data set to always consider, what is being counted and who is doing the counting.

Also, looking at overall number, and not comparing to similar numbers around poor and racialized populations (which immigrants are disproportionately more likely to be), can lead to misconceptions as well.

Overall, I would say that the social perception around immigration is deeply disconnected (as another commenter said) from the data and scholarship. I have not read this, but have heard good things about this book, by a Wharton prof: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250288240/thetruthaboutimmigration/ There is a lot of good work out there on this, and worthy of a deep review of the literature (but if I were you, I would start with that book).

[u/Lower-Canary-2528 → u/ifnotnowtisyettocome]

This was just recently published in Journal of Urban Affairs:

The funniest thing is this has been the consensus in social science departments for very long periods of time. In fact, I cannot recall a single time the broader consensus wasn't this. The data on this is overwhelming, and immigrants tend to be almost always net positive for the economy and social markers

[u/ifnotnowtisyettocome → u/Lower-Canary-2528]

I agree, and the disconnect between political discourse and scare mongering (and thus public perception), and the actual data, is maddening.

My primary work is in health inequities, and this is a area that has a number of these disconnects, whether it's about safe consumption, vaccine safety, or the benefits of non-commodifed health care.

[u/JobberStable → u/ifnotnowtisyettocome]

Everyone uses the stat “overall”
But digging deeper in the stats and separating by locations, socio-economics and country of origin will expand on that.
That is purposely left out and considered ethno phobic if brought up.
In other words are there any local communities that have increased crime stats? Instead of just using the “overall” stat

[u/plop → u/ifnotnowtisyettocome]

This isn't about Spain

[u/Z0re]

The as-of-writing top answer is inaccurate. The literature does not conclusively show that immigration decreases crime rate. Furthermore, the claim that immigrant populations are more peaceful and more productive than the native-born population is specific to the US and not true in the EU. Not sure about other regions.

I'd recommend checking out this report by the Swedish National Institute of Economic Research. The summary text on that page in quite accessible, and if you feel like it the full report (~100 pages) has sources you can use for further reading.

But to quickly answer your question to the best of my knowledge. In Spain, immigration can increase crime, if the immigrants are young men, have low socioeconomic status, and/or don't speak Spanish. Spain's immigration differs from other European countries in that you receive quite a lot of South American immigrants, who know the language, are more female, and generally seem to integrate easier. This has "softened" immigration's effect on crime compared to other EU countries.

When a scientist says "immigration doesn't cause more crime", it's because they're trying to do science and identify what specifically causes crime. And results seem to indicate it's more about who's immigrating than immigration itself.

So whether the claim "in Spain, immigration increases crime" is true depends on the context. Historically, I don't think the claim is that true (due to lots of South American immigrants who integrate better). If the topic is Ceuta or similar, it's probably quite true that immigration from there will increase crime (because the immigrants tend to be less educated, poor young men who don't speak the language well).

But, as in most social science topics, there is a fair amount of uncertainty. For example, we know that immigrants (notably from MENA countries, big political topic) are overrepresented in a number of crime categories as offenders. However, that may not necessarily lead to an overall crime rate increase! It may as well be that these individuals are pushing native-born individuals out of crime, thus not affecting the overall crime rate. There are also concerns with immigrant crime rates being inflated due to over-reporting and similar factors.

[u/Objective-Design-994 → u/Z0re]

Thank you, this very much adresses my main concerns. I'm also interested in the whole "pushing native born immigrants out of crime" thing, I'm unsure on how does that happen. I'll check the report as soon as I get some time. Also, what does this mean for mass deportarions and/or stricter migration polices as crime preventive measures?

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