Facts about migration and crime in Sweden
OK, I&#x27;m going to address two claims together:<p>&gt; &quot;The number of reported rapes in Sweden has risen. But the definition of rape has broadened over time, which makes it difficult to compare the figures. It is also misleading to compare the figures with other countries, as many acts that are considered rape under Swedish law are not considered rape in many other countries.&quot;<p>and:<p>&gt; &quot;the main difference in terms of criminal activity between immigrants and others in the population was due to differences in the socioeconomic conditions in which they grew up in Sweden.&quot;<p>Firstly, &quot;socioeconomic conditions&quot; can not excuse away rape or murder. And even if they could, that&#x27;s little solace to the victims of these crimes. Secondly the study they are referring to states that &quot;socioeconomic conditions&quot; can explain 50% to 75% of the difference. Even then, what about the other 25% to 50%?<p>As for the redefinition of rape, it was expanded in April 2005 to include acts perpetrated against victims in a ‘helpless state’, such as being intoxicated. So it&#x27;s broader but much of what it captures still falls under the term rape in other countries&#x27; legislation too. New crimes weren&#x27;t invented, they were simply shifted from the sexual assault column. Plus it keeps on rising, a decade after the redefinition.<p>But here&#x27;s the thing. We can ignore the redefinition and the associated noise, and instead look at trends before 2005 as well as at aggravated rape (Grov våldtäkt) whose frequency is not affected by changing definitions. We can also just see what the crime reports tell us. Let&#x27;s do that.<p>Here&#x27;s the facts:<p>- Studies in 1996 and again in 2005 showed that foreign-born individuals were 4.7 times more likely to commit a crime of rape and 3.7 times more likely to commit the crime of murder.<p>- Multiplying each group&#x27;s proportion of suspects by their absolute size gives us the absolute amount of those suspected of &quot;Rape&quot; for each group. Doing that we find that &quot;Swedes&quot; made up 43.5% of &quot;Rape&quot; suspects, &quot;Half-Swedes&quot; made up 14.6% of &quot;Rape&quot; suspects, and &quot;Foreigners&quot; made up 42% of &quot;Rape&quot; suspects. These are approximations.<p>- 2005&#x27;s info is less informative as Sweden stopped publishing info on ethnicity but had this to say in a their report: &quot;Immigrants’ risk of being registered for crime has not changed in any pronounced way since the previous study conducted by the National Council, which related to the situation at the end of the 1980s&quot;<p>- Before the change to the penal code in 2005, rapes were rising rapidly. &quot;The number of consummated rapes reported to the police has increased dramatically, more than tripling over the course of the past two decades. A total of 2,261 consummated rapes were reported to the police in the year 2004. It is not possible to exclude the possibility that the dramatic increase in reported rape offences may at least to some extent be the result of an increase in the propensity to report these crimes to the police. <i>On the whole, however, no support was found for interpretations suggesting that this factor, even taken in combination with the effects of the legislative change referred to above, would be sufficient to explain any major part of the increase in the number of reported rapes. Thus it has not been established, but it does not appear unlikely, that the number of rapes committed has in fact increased.</i>&quot;<p>- &quot;Since 1990, the number of reported cases has increased by an average 400 per year. According to the National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), people’s propensity to report has probably increased during this period, <i>but a reasonable assumption is that actual violence against women in close relationships also increased in the 1990s.</i>&quot;<p>- A 1996 BRA (Swedish Criminal statistics) study found that <i>&quot;there any indication that immigrants in Sweden are discriminated in the courts. Immigrant overrepresentation in registered crime is almost certainly real...nor is it caused by any generally lower social economic status (calculated as per SEI code) in Sweden.&quot;</i><p>- Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention determined that between 1985 and 1989 individuals born in Iraq, North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia),Africa (excluding Uganda and the North African countries), other Middle East (Jordan, Palestine, Syria), Iran and Eastern Europe (Romania, Bulgaria) were convicted of rape at rates 20, 23, 17, 9, 10 and 18 greater than individuals born in Sweden respectively.&quot;<p>- Eurostat use the ICCS (international classification of crime for statistical purposes) method which standardises types of crimes so that they mean the same thing in different countries. Their stats show rape in Sweden is rising both before and after 2005.<p>- Audited sentences for rape from 2009 shows an over-representation by as many as 48 percent of the rapists were born abroad. (This represents an increase compared data from 2005, which could point to the phenomenon is growing.) Within the category of aggravated rape, the figure was as much as 64 percent.<p>- Professor Sten Levander, a member of BRÅ:s scientific board, in an interview with tabloid Aftonbladet said &quot;That the number of reported rapes has increased so significantly in a short time can not be explained by regulatory changes and increased willingness to report the crime. Scientists believe that certain types of rape may indeed have become more common.&quot;<p>So, yes. Sweden&#x27;s real rape-rate is rising and, yes, migrants are disproportionately responsible. 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