Meanwhile in Sweden:
> According to the most recent study, people from foreign backgrounds are 2.5 times more likely to be suspected of crimes than people born in Sweden to Swedish-born parents.
Two completely different things.
We don't know who actually committed a crime. That should probably be either "arrested for" or "convicted of".
"Suspected of" probably means "arrested for", but there too, the author has chosen a word that's unclear.
commit: Convicted of
suspected of: Not convicted
These are as far as I (and the law) are concerned the only two things that matter. If you've been convicted you are guilty, if not you are not. If you're guilty we can say you've committed a crime, if not not.
> The documents note that while the number of refugees in the country has risen sharply throughout 2015, the crime rate has not gone up correspondingly, but has "merely risen steadily".
Of course it would not rise sharply even if refugees do commit more crimes. Refugees are a small portion of the population and will only have a small effect on overall crime rates.
> Interior Minsiter Thomas de Maizière responded to the news by saying: "The current trend shows that refugees are just as unlikely to commit crimes as comparable groups among the current population. The majority of them don't commit crimes, they are seeking protection and and peace in Germany."
Note: "just as" and "comparable groups", rather than the whole population.
> The rate of crime in refugee reception centres has gone up most quickly.
It sounds like thelocal.de took some liberties.
Generally, the most valid data from crime apparently comes from 'victimization surveys' - as opposed to actual police data, which is politicized.
So, from victimization surveys - people can only necessarily be 'suspected' of a crime i.e. 'were you robbed in the last year'? Well, if the person answered 'yes' - then the language may only imply that a specific individual was 'suspected' of a crime. Also, it's pretty difficult to determine ethnicity.
So this may not simply be a case of 'police suspects' vs 'police arrests' etc.. It's complicated. Better to have the references.
However the majority of Syrian refugees - about 70%[1][2][3] are women and children. Again, something that is rarely mentioned in certain parts of the internet.
[1]- http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/feb/...
[2]-https://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php
[3]-http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/...
However the majority of all 2015 refugees aren't Syrian?
Edit: I misread this chart... a lot. Syrians are the largest group but not the majority. Never mind!
> I was pretty sure they were actually (link to BBC)
Your link has 1.32 million asylum claims, around 360 thousand Syrians, then roughly one fourth are Syrians, three fourths aren't, that is, the majority of all aren't.
70% is thus a very unclear number unless you can split out the number of children, or if one do not include how big the "men and children" group is.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/great-moments-in-real-news-tm-from...
If you incentivize people to say they're "children", and don't bother to verify claims of being a "child", you get a lot of "children", but that statistic won't mean much.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeAnarchy/comments/47ri8u/this_...
Claimed ages are accepted without question. To question the age is considered racist. There is an incentive to lie: minors get instant citizenship and lots of help.
So really, it isn't children. It's men.
Would you want a 30-year-old dude in your daughter's 7th grade class?
What do you imply exactly? So Swedish police are more likely to suspect you if you are a foreigner, how unexpected.
I wish the authors had included a link to that study so we could see what "suspected of" means exactly.
It means someone was suspected (e.g. were at any time a suspect during the investigation), regardless of whether they actually committed anything or not.
Ok then.
I'd be surprised if it was different in Sweden, or any other country with similar problems, as it's easy to distinguish the looks of most immigrants and the local population.
It's not. To take Germany as an example, the largest group of foreigners are Turks, followed by Poles and Italians. More than half of foreigner's in Germany are from European countries. On the other hand, many people from that groups are now German citizens and have grand-children that are in Germany in the third generation. A large number of German citizens have foreign born parents and many foreigners are born in Germany. If you can reliably distinguish between immigrants and the rest of the population by the looks your skills would be in high demand.
See https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/Populat... for detailed statistics.
http://www.government.se/articles/2017/02/facts-about-migrat...