Crime and punishment among immigrants and the remaining Norwegian population

Abstract

Registered crime and punishment among immigrants and Norwegian-born persons with two immigrant parents are described and compared with the remaining Norwegian population. Previous studies have shown that immigrants are overrepresented in the crime statistics. It is also well known that the immigrant population have a different composition related to age, and for some countries also sex. As crime is strongly associated with age and sex, the population structure might be an important explanation for the differences between population groups:

It should not be surprising if groups with large proportions of young males have higher crime rates than groups with large proportions elderly women. Moreover, immigrants do also have a different residential pattern than the remaining population, and they participate in the labour market to a less degree, which might have consequences for the crime rates as well. However, there are large differences between immigrant groups along both population structure, social integration, and their representation in the crime statistics. This report gives a broad overview of immigrants’ representation in the crime statistics for charged persons, persons receiving a sanction, and imprisoned persons. The figures are given for selected countries of origin, and the remaining countries by world regions. A main purpose of this report is to adjust the crime rates relative to population structure, place of residence, and participation in the labour market.

Chapter 3 to 5 gives an overview of charged persons, persons received a sanction, and imprisoned persons. We show that immigrants are generally overrepresented compared to the remaining population, but also that there are substantial variation by country of origin. Immigrants from some countries (e.g. Kosovo, Somalia, Irak and Iran) have several times as high proportion of charged and/or sanctioned persons, while other groups (e.g. India, China and the Philippines, as well as the western countries) are underrepresented in the crime statistics.

Norwegian born persons with two immigrant parents are also overrepresented in the crime statistics. However, this is a rather small group of persons which give large uncertainties in the estimates. Since about 73 per cent (per 2008) of this group is younger than the minimum age of criminal responsibility (15 years old), this is a group that should be studied closer in a few years when they to a larger extent is above the age of criminal responsibility.

In chapter 6, we adjust the figures for population structure (age and sex), place of residence, and participation in the labour market. The overrepresentation is substantially reduced when adjusting for population structure – for some groups as much as 45 per cent, but there are also some groups where the overrepresentation still is large. The effect of population structure is largest for those groups that initially were the most overrepresented. Even if there are reasons to believe that residential pattern might affect crime rates for some groups, place of residence have little or no effect here. That immigrants tend to live in the larger cities does not explain much of the crime rates. Participation in the labour market does also only have moderate influence on the figures. The main results are largely similar for charged, sanctioned, and imprisoned persons, as well as for major types of crime (property, violence, drugs, and traffic offences).