Jérôme Valette is an economist at CEPII (Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales), France’s main financial think-tank, based in 1978. Valette can also be a lecturer in economics on the College Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and head of the Dynamics division on the Institut Français de Collaboration sur les Migrations (ICM).
Along with Arnaud Philippe, an economist specialising in prison justice, he’s co-author of Immigration et délinquance : réalités et perceptions. Their article explores a query that usually crops up in political debates and statistical analyses: is there a hyperlink between immigration and elevated crime?
Voxeurop: Is there a hyperlink between immigration and crime?
Jérôme Valette: All of it depends upon the character of the hyperlink. There isn’t any direct causal hyperlink between immigration and crime. In different phrases, given equal demographic and socio-economic traits, immigrants aren’t any extra seemingly than native-born folks to commit against the law.
Immigrants and natives nearly at all times have totally different demographic and socio-economic traits. Males, younger folks and folks in precarious conditions are sometimes over-represented amongst immigrants.
It’s these particular elements that enhance the chances of committing against the law. The identical elements additionally enhance these odds amongst native-born folks.
There are two key factors right here. First, there’s the problem of a causal hyperlink: does being an immigrant in itself, all different issues being equal, enhance the chance of committing against the law? The reply is not any.
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However, secondly, you’ve traits related to sure waves of migration (akin to poverty and financial insecurity) which will enhance the chance of committing against the law. But these are traits that, when present in native-born folks, additionally enhance the chance of committing against the law.
To simplify issues, we would say that financial precariousness will increase the chance of committing against the law, however migration doesn’t, is that it?
In case you are an immigrant, on common you might be no extra more likely to commit against the law. This doesn’t maintain for poor immigrants particularly, however that’s as a result of they’re poor, not as a result of they’re immigrants.
In different phrases, to be an immigrant in itself doesn’t enhance the chance of committing against the law. If an immigrant is extra uncovered to poverty, it’s poverty that’s the trigger, not the actual fact of being an immigrant.
Does the query of a hyperlink between immigration and crime not itself reveal a prejudice? Fairly often, as journalists or researchers, we discover ourselves making an attempt to do fact-checking on assertions which are basically simply false.
I believe that each one questions are respectable from a analysis standpoint, and that there isn’t a purpose to favour one query over one other. That is very true on condition that the hyperlink between immigration and insecurity is of nice concern to native-born folks. It is respectable for journalists and researchers to take an curiosity.
Our function, nevertheless, is to method this concern by going past the easy interpretation of crime statistics.
It’s important to know that when non-immigrants affiliate immigration with crime, this stems largely from their studying of the statistics. For instance, once we see that foreigners make up 8% of the inhabitants in France, however 17% of these charged with offences, we’re fast to conclude that there’s a direct hyperlink. This reasoning, though intuitive, is sadly not enough.
In what method?
There are a lot of the explanation why immigrants are systemically over-represented in crime statistics. One instance is discrimination.
If immigrants usually tend to face discrimination all through the prison justice system – whether or not by way of the chance of being arrested or the chance of being discovered responsible – then they may mechanically have the next chance of being implicated and convicted than non-immigrants. This results in an obvious over-representation within the information.
To beat such bias, researchers are trying extra carefully at a key query: when immigrants settle in a area, is there a rise in crime? Research present that, on common, no, there isn’t a common enhance in crime. The one exception to that is property-related offences, or theft, to place it extra merely.
Why this exception? Such a crime is carefully linked to financial insecurity and difficulties in accessing the labour market. Each these points are notably prevalent amongst folks with irregular standing.
You additionally point out the significance of media protection. What’s the function of the media?
There are two necessary media practices that may contribute to overestimating the notion of a hyperlink between immigration and crime.
The primary is the selection made by journalists to report extra usually on crimes dedicated by foreigners than on these dedicated by native-born folks. In different phrases, for a similar crime, newspapers are likely to focus extra on circumstances involving foreigners. This mechanically creates an over-representation of the crime hole between immigrants and natives within the media.
A research carried out in Switzerland demonstrated this phenomenon on the time of the 2009 referendum on banning the development of minarets. The researchers confirmed that municipalities the place the press tended to over-report crimes involving foreigners recorded the next vote in opposition to the development of minarets.
The second mechanism lies within the alternative made by journalists of whether or not or to not reveal the nationality or origin of the folks implicated in crimes. An experiment in Germany by the Saxony-based newspaper Sächsische Zeitung highlighted this impact. In July 2016, this newspaper moved in a single day to a coverage of at all times mentioning the origin of each particular person concerned in against the law or misdemeanour, no matter whether or not they had been international or native-born (German, on this case).
This alteration uncovered readers to extra impartial media protection. Articles would state, for instance, that “a 25-year-old German has dedicated against the law” or that “a German is a suspect”. The brand new method modified public perceptions within the newspaper’s area of protection. Attitudes in the direction of immigration grew to become extra optimistic, and concern about migration shifted to a extra common concern about crime. Residents started to see crime as an issue involving the entire inhabitants, fairly than only one linked to immigration.
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