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Changes in Immigrant Population Prevalence and High Violent Crime Rates in Swedish Municipalities
University of Gävle, Faculty of Health and Occupational Studies, Department of Social Work, Criminology and Public Health Sciences, Criminology. Department of Criminology, Stockholm University; Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall; Insitute for Futures Studies, Stockholm.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1061-7851
University of Gävle, Faculty of Health and Occupational Studies, Department of Social Work, Criminology and Public Health Sciences, Criminology. Department of Criminology, Stockholm University; Insitute for Futures Studies, Stockholm; School of Behavioural, Social and Legal Sciences, Örebro University.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4513-1501
University of Gävle, Faculty of Health and Occupational Studies, Department of Social Work, Criminology and Public Health Sciences, Criminology.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8186-3662
University of Gävle, Faculty of Health and Occupational Studies, Department of Social Work, Criminology and Public Health Sciences, Criminology.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2549-9114
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2025 (English)In: Journal of International Migration and Integration, ISSN 1488-3473, E-ISSN 1874-6365, Vol. 26, p. 1223-1243Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Global evidence indicates minimal connection between immigration and crime. Nordic research, however, has been generally carried out on individuals and shows that immigrants are over-represented in crime. This has led to claims that high crime rates are due to immigration. We directed our study towards these claims by analyzing immigrant population prevalence, defined as the percent of foreign-born individuals, and violent crime in Swedish municipalities between 2000 and 2020. Nearly all municipalities had higher violent crime rates in 2020 relative to 2000. To discern whether drastic increases in municipality-level crime rates could be connected to municipality-level immigrant population prevalence, a retrospective case–control design was used to select 20 municipalities with the highest increase in reported violent crime rates and 20 municipalities with the lowest increase in reported violent crime rates. Immigrant population prevalence had little association with high rates of reported violent crime. The average association between immigrant population prevalence and violent crime rates calculated from all municipalities was also weak and non-significant (p > 0.05). Municipalities with a high increase in crime tended to have more crime correlates than municipalities with a low increase in crime. However, more research is needed on the impact of migration in small towns, especially those that have experienced economic and social stagnation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature, 2025. Vol. 26, p. 1223-1243
Keywords [en]
Europe; Immigration; Macro-level; Sweden; Violence
National Category
Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Research subject
Sustainable Urban Development; Health-Promoting Work, Crime and social harms
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-46315DOI: 10.1007/s12134-024-01221-1Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85217247674OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hig-46315DiVA, id: diva2:1928003
Part of project
What happened in Sweden over the last 40 years? Studies on crime, gender, ethnicity and social class, Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare
Funder
Forte, Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, 2020-00331Available from: 2025-01-15 Created: 2025-01-15 Last updated: 2025-10-02Bibliographically approved

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Sarnecki, JerzyBeckley, AmberWikman, SofiaWestfelt, LarsLilja, MyMondani, HernanBäcklin, EmyRostami, Amir

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Sarnecki, JerzyBeckley, AmberWikman, SofiaWestfelt, LarsLilja, MyMondani, HernanBäcklin, EmyRostami, Amir
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Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

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