Looking into Crime from an Immigration Perspective
16/04/2008
"When deciding you want to immigrate, many factors come into play and the levels of crime in a particular country are high on the priority list", says Liam Clifford, Director of Global Visas, a visa and immigration authority.
Various countries, such as the United States, are often presumed as having high crime levels; however they may be safer than you think.
This is proven by overall crime, which includes homicide, rape, assault and robbery, rates for the US have consistently dropping over the past decade below that of England, Wales and even Finland. This is according to the World Crime Survey compiled by the United Nations.
In 1980 the United States was the western world's leader in terms of crime, but drops have constantly since occurred in robbery, burglary and vehicle theft.
Although international figures for crime vary greatly, the high rate of immigration is often stereotypically blamed for the level of crime. This however has been proven false by recent studies.
There has been mass exodus from Europe to England in the past years and concurrently there is the view that crime levels have increased. Nevertheless a recent study conducted for the Association of Chief Police Officers by chief constables Grahame Maxwell and Peter Fahy shows that of the 800 000 migrants coming to work in Britain since 2004, there is no evidence to prove that this has impacted on crime levels.
They ultimately revealed that those immigrants from Poland, Bulgaria and Russia who where reported offenders were ranked in line with the rest of the United Kingdom.
Another study by Robert Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard University, showed that violence was in fact lower in immigrant concentrated communities in the Unites States. The mere fear of deportation and need to work are seen as reasons why immigrants, in particular Mexicans, affect low crime levels.
Despite levels of immigration and perceptions of foreigners various countries are consistently viewed as safe places to live and therefore are the foremost choices when it comes to immigration.
Such a place is Canada, who reported a record 25-year drop in crime in 2006, down 3% from 2005. According to the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit's Liveability Ranking Vancouver, Canada came out tops in the Best Places to Live section, mainly due to low crime rates.
As Colin Romberger, an expert in Canadian at Global Visas says, "Immigration in Canada constitutes an ever-growing section of society and the country has been rated as the number 1 place to live four times in the past decade by the United Nations Human Development Index." The United Nations report also ranks Norway, Australia, Sweden and Iceland highly due to safety reasons.
Please note that comparative reflections on crime rates in various countries is flawed due to factors such as differences in terms of criminal justice systems, numbers of people who in fact report a crime and the differences between the quality of data in various countries.
USA
UK
Australia
Canada
South Africa
New Zealand
Ireland
India
China
Philippines