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Comment by AnthonyMouse | Hacker News Reader

> So it seems that whilst immigrants are suspected of more crimes than average, they commit the same amount of crime as poor deprived members of indigenous populations.

"Commit the same level of crime as the subset of the population who commit the highest level of crime" does not sound very reassuring.

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The quote was:

"In a later study, researchers at Stockholm University showed that 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."

That means that the most important factor in terms of criminal activity is that immigrants are largely poor and poor commit more crimes. Not that rich immigrants perform as much crimes as the poorest of non-immigrants.

Or do you disagree with that assesment of what the study said?

The point is that most of these immigrants are poor, correspondingly prone to crime, and therefore not the sort of people you want to blast into your tiny population by the tens of thousands. Things are also confounded by the fact that most of these people are heavily theologically indoctrinated, making social integration and upward mobility effectively impossible, so they're going to stay poor.

> Things are also confounded by the fact that most of these people are heavily theologically indoctrinated, making social integration and upward mobility effectively impossible

This is when your biases are walking uninvited into a discussion about data.

Pointing out that religious fundamentalists don't integrate well is not a good example of "bias".

That you believe a majority are religious fundementalist is bias

Pew research does per-country religious belief surveys. I think you will find it very enlightening to look up the religious beliefs of the average Syrian.

Can you give a link to the results?

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi... (no Syria data)

http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/40ebdf12-8960-4d18...

And can you tell me what makes someone a refugee? Whether an average refugee is ideologically/culturally identical to the average non-refugee from that country? And how about a refugee who's choosing to go live in a country very different from their own?

Pointing us to "per-country religious belief surveys" is incredibly simplistic.

"Things are also confounded by the fact.."

Which facts? What do you base this belief on? Any sources to any studies?

Swedens tiny population of 10 million can't handle immigration of tens of thousands? That's laughabale, it's been doing exactly that for decades now. Iraq, Iran, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Ukraine, Syria. Only recently has a resistance to these policies been seriously challenged...

Upwards mobility will happen, even during the worst conditions, like the slavery in US, did they manage to break free. This is not about when but how, true solidarity or true civil war and tragedy..

> What do you base this belief on? Any sources to any studies?

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...

You should think very carefully about why you had an incorrect model of these people. You may be making similar mistakes in other areas.

> Swedens tiny population of 10 million can't handle immigration of tens of thousands?

Depends how you define "handle". If by "handle" you mean "avoid cultural erasure", then maybe not.

I'd also like to point out that it's tens of thousands per year. There are almost 100,000 Syrians in Sweden.

> Upwards mobility will happen

On what do you base this claim? Has upward mobility happened in the countries from which these refugees originate?

Sure, if you deliberately misinterpret things you can make them sound as bad as you want.

If immigrants in a certain area/age/education level/income level commit fewer crimes than the corresponding group of natives that would be surprising.

That would exclude "no go zones" as they are inhabitated by the poorest AKA immigrants, and very few Swedes.

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