yes, and lets remember that those who have been granted British nationality are also not included because they count under British national! - even if they have dual nationality - a breakdown by country of origin over the previous 3 generations would be interesting and would of course increase the crime and arrest rates for foreigners. On top of that this is only including those who are caught or those crimes that are indeed reported!
Congratulations on getting this data - a huge public service.
One thing missing from your analysis is the role of age.
Foreign nationals are a lot younger than UK nationals - for example, only 6% are aged 65 and over compared to 25% of UK nationals. And the vast majority of crime is caused by people under the age of 50 - very few pensioners are arrested.
If you limit your analysis to the arrest rate per adult aged under 50 there would be little difference between UK nationals and foreign nationals.
that's a bit of an assertion surely? At the end of the day we can see clear as day the disparities between these foreign nationals - which as you say are indeed all younger, but the disparities between them proves that there wouldn't be much change. Obviously the British number might go up, but lets also bare in mind that the British number also includes second generation immigrants and those who have been granted nationality - intuition tells us that these numbers would be high than the average non-immigrant background British national.
It’s not an assertion - if you use the population aged under 65 as the denominator (on the basis that less than 2% of convictions, and an even lower proportion of convictions of foreign nationals, are of people aged 65 and over) there’s no difference at all in the conviction rate between British citizens and foreign nationals
I have expressed no view whatsoever on immigration policy.
It is just important to be clear that foreign nationals are - despite how this data has been interpreted by the media, certain politicians and much of the public - not more likely to commit crime than British citizens of the same age
Well that’s not true - there’s no evidence to support that claim - clearly between foreign nationals there are huge disparities, you can’t just assert that it would be the same. Yes intuition can tell us that including age would make British nationals per 1000 arrest rate go up, however you can’t just say that ‘they are not more likely to commit crime’ because clearly Albanians and Afghanis are. A really good example is in Italy, they had a similar study but it was much more comprehensive. In Italy foreign nationals committed 42% of all rapes despite only making up 8% of the population (I believe this was 2016). And they committed crimes at 29 times the rate of Italian nationals. Our intuition should also tell us that this should follow a similar pattern in the UK. Now let’s imagine you removed European nationals from that list. - the numbers would go even higher because Europeans bring down that overall average for foreign nationals - and they make up a large percentage of our foreign population. So yes there are so inconclusive elements to this study but it’s clear that these act in both ways to support and undermine its conclusion. In the end I think its fairly clear that they do overall commit more crimes (or at least some specific natuonalities certainly do - which is why we should bring back red listing for all Albanian nationals
Some progress I guess in you almost conceding that foreign nationals overall are no more likely to commit crime than British citizens once you control for age.
We cannot say from the Centre for Migration Control’s data whether or not individual nationalities are more likely to commit crime than similar British citizens as it does not control for age. This is a huge issue for certain nationalities like Afghans who are a far younger population than British citizens e.g. two thirds of Afghan adults are aged 34 and under. We need to age-specific data.
It is also worth highlighting that the absolute number of convictions is very low for most of those nationalities, which I assume is why the Centre for Migration Control’s data focused on rates rather than the number of convictions. For example, there were only 11,897 Afghan citizens aged 16+ in England and Wales at Census 2021. That means that there were a total of 1,200 convictions of Afghan nationals in three years, 0.1% of the total of 872,488 convictions.
No you said ‘if you limit you analysis to the arrest rather adult aged under 50 there would be little difference between UK nationals and foreign nationals.’ - that is an assertion because we don’t have the data to prove that - while you are right to point out the age issue hyou can’t deny it’s clear that many foreign nationals have high crime stats. Even if you got rid of 50+ for UK you wouldn’t be anywhere near the rate for Albanians or Afghani nationals. So I’m not saying you’re wrong, it would be interesting to see how much of an impact that has - but obviously this is all the data we have at the moment. I just think it’s an assertion to definitively say that the arrest rate would be the same for UK and foreign nationals.
If you use under 50s as the denominator then you would conclude that foreign nationals have a *lower* crime rate.
It is clear that this is true: few over 50s are convicted of criminal offences. I have requested the data cut by age from the Ministry of Justice to get the data to definitively prove it rather than have to make the imperfect assumption that no over 50s are convicted of crimes.
Age is the key driver for Afghans and Albanians too - they are very young populations, few are aged 35 and over as per Census 2021 data and a similar group of British citizens would have a far higher crime rate than the general population. But we do need the age-specific conviction rate data from the MoJ to be able to make conclusions about individual nationalities, especially as the Centre for Migration Control hasn’t published the data on the number of convictions by nationality, only on rates.
So you are suggesting that simply a difference in average age could make up for a more than 200 point difference in arrest rate (bearing in mind the vast majority of Britains are still younger than 50). As I said before - many of these immigrant populations have a similar average age in the UK, so how do you explain a difference between the crime rates for say Albanians and Romanians for example? It’s a significant variation in reality so clearly there are very significant differences between country of origin and that does play an important role.
There’s a big hole in your nationality analysis. The report uses 2021 populations with 2024 arrest data and those populations are mostly in the tens of thousands. The latest data from the ONS states “1.2 million people migrate to the country in the year ending June 2024”. If the report were to use more accurate population data the league table would look completely different as the distribution of nationalities in the UK has changed.
fundamentally the number for each individual nationality will only have increased a little bit - compared to the arrest rate even if overall the number has increased a lot. So while the arrest rates or sexual offence rates might be lower they certainly don't change the data much - also bare in mind that the disparity between different nationalities would still exist at the same scale so this doesn't really make sense - any way lets remember we're dealing specifically with those who were caught in the crime - not all the many that go unsolved or unreported (i.e. women not reporting sexual offences). And also if you read this the CMC took the highest estimate by the ONS for 2021 for nationality, and it might very well have been much lower for each one which would have resulted in an even higher crime rate - whatever you do you can't get around the damaging image these statistcs have on foreign nationals - which also doesn't include those which have been granted citizenship or second generation immigrants! - Intuition would tell us that these numbers would also be far higher therefore.
Whilst such research is vital in exposing the extent of the societal damage caused by unchecked and uncontrolled immigration, the mention of Robert Jenrick - who has now adopted a populist perspective on the topic - rather makes my blood boil: he was, after all, central to the advent of the Boriswave that inflicted millions of unnecessary migrants on us all in a very short space of time.
He may talk a “good game” now but I find it very hard to have any trust in a guy who willingly shat all over the desires of the majority of the country - a reversal of the net immigration numbers.
When evaluating the reliability of this report from the Centre for Migration Control, it is important to understand that while the raw numbers are generally real, having been obtained via Freedom of Information requests to UK police forces, the methodology, calculations, and conclusions have significant flaws.
An analysis of this type of data by organisations like the Oxford University Migration Observatory, Home Office statisticians, and independent fact-checkers reveals several major issues that make the report's conclusions highly misleading.
Arrests Are Not the Same as Convictions
The report bases its statistics entirely on arrests. Under UK law, an arrest is an investigative tool used by the police and does not mean a crime was actually committed or that the person is guilty. Statistics from the Ministry of Justice and Home Office audits consistently show that a significant portion of arrests do not lead to a charge, and even fewer lead to a conviction. Furthermore, data analysed by the Ministry of Justice shows that proportionately fewer foreign nationals end up in prison for sexual offences compared to British nationals relative to their total arrest numbers, which means looking at arrests alone heavily inflates the perceived crime rate.
The Failure to Adjust for Age and Sex Demographics
This is the most critical statistical error in the report. Crime statistics are heavily influenced by age and sex: young men aged between 16 and 30 are statistically much more likely to commit crimes than any other demographic group. The UK’s domestic population includes millions of elderly people and children who rarely, if ever, commit violent or sexual crimes. In contrast, the UK's migrant population is heavily skewed towards young, working-age adults and young men. Because the Centre for Migration Control compared the entire domestic British population, including children and the elderly, against a predominantly young adult migrant population without adjusting for age or sex distribution, the comparison is statistically invalid. When experts control for age and sex, the statistical gap between foreign nationals and British citizens drops dramatically.
Outdated and Inaccurate Population Denominators
To calculate an arrest rate per 1,000, you must divide the number of arrests by an accurate total population number for that specific group. The report's Migrant Crime League Table fails here. The report explicitly states it relies on Office for National Statistics population data from 2021. However, the arrest data is from 2024. Between 2021 and 2024, the UK experienced historically high levels of net migration. Specifically for nationalities highlighted by the report, such as Afghans, the population in the UK grew exponentially after 2021 due to resettlement schemes following the Taliban's return to power. By dividing 2024 arrests by an outdated, much smaller 2021 population figure, the report severely overestimates and inflates the actual per-capita arrest rates for those nationalities.
Overcounting Transient Populations
The police record the nationality of anyone they arrest, including tourists, seasonal workers, individuals in transit at airports, and short-term visitors. These individuals are counted in the report’s arrest numbers, but they are completely absent from the official resident population statistics. This mismatch naturally creates an artificially inflated crime rate for foreign nationals.
Official Context versus Report Claims
To put the report's claims into perspective, official data published by the Oxford Migration Observatory notes that in England and Wales, non-UK nationals make up roughly 12.4 per cent of the prison population and account for about 13 per cent of all cautions and convictions. When compared to the fact that non-citizens make up roughly 12 per cent of the overall UK population aged 16 and over, the actual rate of proven criminality among foreign nationals is broadly proportionate to their share of the population. This completely contradicts the claim that migrants are committing crimes at multiple times the rate of British citizens.
Conclusion
While the Centre for Migration Control did compile real Freedom of Information data regarding raw arrest numbers, you cannot trust the report’s conclusions. By conflating arrests with guilt, failing to control for age and gender, and using outdated population figures, the report manipulates the data to present an inaccurate and artificially inflated picture of migrant criminality.
Whilst such research is vital in exposing the extent of the societal damage caused by unchecked and uncontrolled immigration, the mention of Robert Jenrick - who has now adopted a populist perspective on the topic - rather makes my blood boil: he was, after all, central to the advent of the Boriswave
Many immigrants came illegally to the UK (like Albanians) and that makes them more prone to the underworld and illegal activities. In the US people from South America tend to be more prone to criminal activity than let's say people from other parts of the world just because it's more hard for South Americans to have legal status in the US.
The information would be better if second generation migration statistics were provided.
Then we'd know the true scale of inviting the turd world into our homes.
Or even a list of first names of the "native" born criminals.
Of course we have to askhow many migrants were not arrested when clearly thry were up to no good.
yes, and lets remember that those who have been granted British nationality are also not included because they count under British national! - even if they have dual nationality - a breakdown by country of origin over the previous 3 generations would be interesting and would of course increase the crime and arrest rates for foreigners. On top of that this is only including those who are caught or those crimes that are indeed reported!
Sterling research. Thank you.
No wonder ‘two tier Kier’ & pooper Cooper wanted this data buried!
Congratulations on getting this data - a huge public service.
One thing missing from your analysis is the role of age.
Foreign nationals are a lot younger than UK nationals - for example, only 6% are aged 65 and over compared to 25% of UK nationals. And the vast majority of crime is caused by people under the age of 50 - very few pensioners are arrested.
If you limit your analysis to the arrest rate per adult aged under 50 there would be little difference between UK nationals and foreign nationals.
that's a bit of an assertion surely? At the end of the day we can see clear as day the disparities between these foreign nationals - which as you say are indeed all younger, but the disparities between them proves that there wouldn't be much change. Obviously the British number might go up, but lets also bare in mind that the British number also includes second generation immigrants and those who have been granted nationality - intuition tells us that these numbers would be high than the average non-immigrant background British national.
It’s not an assertion - if you use the population aged under 65 as the denominator (on the basis that less than 2% of convictions, and an even lower proportion of convictions of foreign nationals, are of people aged 65 and over) there’s no difference at all in the conviction rate between British citizens and foreign nationals
Suppose there were no young foreign nationals. Crime rates would fall.
You seem to be approving a high population growth rate and a resulting high crime rate. We could have neither and be much happier as a result.
Put simply: there is no need for mass migration and its effects are negative for those people who live here.
I have expressed no view whatsoever on immigration policy.
It is just important to be clear that foreign nationals are - despite how this data has been interpreted by the media, certain politicians and much of the public - not more likely to commit crime than British citizens of the same age
Well that’s not true - there’s no evidence to support that claim - clearly between foreign nationals there are huge disparities, you can’t just assert that it would be the same. Yes intuition can tell us that including age would make British nationals per 1000 arrest rate go up, however you can’t just say that ‘they are not more likely to commit crime’ because clearly Albanians and Afghanis are. A really good example is in Italy, they had a similar study but it was much more comprehensive. In Italy foreign nationals committed 42% of all rapes despite only making up 8% of the population (I believe this was 2016). And they committed crimes at 29 times the rate of Italian nationals. Our intuition should also tell us that this should follow a similar pattern in the UK. Now let’s imagine you removed European nationals from that list. - the numbers would go even higher because Europeans bring down that overall average for foreign nationals - and they make up a large percentage of our foreign population. So yes there are so inconclusive elements to this study but it’s clear that these act in both ways to support and undermine its conclusion. In the end I think its fairly clear that they do overall commit more crimes (or at least some specific natuonalities certainly do - which is why we should bring back red listing for all Albanian nationals
Some progress I guess in you almost conceding that foreign nationals overall are no more likely to commit crime than British citizens once you control for age.
We cannot say from the Centre for Migration Control’s data whether or not individual nationalities are more likely to commit crime than similar British citizens as it does not control for age. This is a huge issue for certain nationalities like Afghans who are a far younger population than British citizens e.g. two thirds of Afghan adults are aged 34 and under. We need to age-specific data.
It is also worth highlighting that the absolute number of convictions is very low for most of those nationalities, which I assume is why the Centre for Migration Control’s data focused on rates rather than the number of convictions. For example, there were only 11,897 Afghan citizens aged 16+ in England and Wales at Census 2021. That means that there were a total of 1,200 convictions of Afghan nationals in three years, 0.1% of the total of 872,488 convictions.
No you said ‘if you limit you analysis to the arrest rather adult aged under 50 there would be little difference between UK nationals and foreign nationals.’ - that is an assertion because we don’t have the data to prove that - while you are right to point out the age issue hyou can’t deny it’s clear that many foreign nationals have high crime stats. Even if you got rid of 50+ for UK you wouldn’t be anywhere near the rate for Albanians or Afghani nationals. So I’m not saying you’re wrong, it would be interesting to see how much of an impact that has - but obviously this is all the data we have at the moment. I just think it’s an assertion to definitively say that the arrest rate would be the same for UK and foreign nationals.
If you use under 50s as the denominator then you would conclude that foreign nationals have a *lower* crime rate.
It is clear that this is true: few over 50s are convicted of criminal offences. I have requested the data cut by age from the Ministry of Justice to get the data to definitively prove it rather than have to make the imperfect assumption that no over 50s are convicted of crimes.
Age is the key driver for Afghans and Albanians too - they are very young populations, few are aged 35 and over as per Census 2021 data and a similar group of British citizens would have a far higher crime rate than the general population. But we do need the age-specific conviction rate data from the MoJ to be able to make conclusions about individual nationalities, especially as the Centre for Migration Control hasn’t published the data on the number of convictions by nationality, only on rates.
So you are suggesting that simply a difference in average age could make up for a more than 200 point difference in arrest rate (bearing in mind the vast majority of Britains are still younger than 50). As I said before - many of these immigrant populations have a similar average age in the UK, so how do you explain a difference between the crime rates for say Albanians and Romanians for example? It’s a significant variation in reality so clearly there are very significant differences between country of origin and that does play an important role.
Disgusting behaviour
Time to deport these criminals
There’s a big hole in your nationality analysis. The report uses 2021 populations with 2024 arrest data and those populations are mostly in the tens of thousands. The latest data from the ONS states “1.2 million people migrate to the country in the year ending June 2024”. If the report were to use more accurate population data the league table would look completely different as the distribution of nationalities in the UK has changed.
fundamentally the number for each individual nationality will only have increased a little bit - compared to the arrest rate even if overall the number has increased a lot. So while the arrest rates or sexual offence rates might be lower they certainly don't change the data much - also bare in mind that the disparity between different nationalities would still exist at the same scale so this doesn't really make sense - any way lets remember we're dealing specifically with those who were caught in the crime - not all the many that go unsolved or unreported (i.e. women not reporting sexual offences). And also if you read this the CMC took the highest estimate by the ONS for 2021 for nationality, and it might very well have been much lower for each one which would have resulted in an even higher crime rate - whatever you do you can't get around the damaging image these statistcs have on foreign nationals - which also doesn't include those which have been granted citizenship or second generation immigrants! - Intuition would tell us that these numbers would also be far higher therefore.
Great work.
Whilst such research is vital in exposing the extent of the societal damage caused by unchecked and uncontrolled immigration, the mention of Robert Jenrick - who has now adopted a populist perspective on the topic - rather makes my blood boil: he was, after all, central to the advent of the Boriswave that inflicted millions of unnecessary migrants on us all in a very short space of time.
He may talk a “good game” now but I find it very hard to have any trust in a guy who willingly shat all over the desires of the majority of the country - a reversal of the net immigration numbers.
Theyre still obfuscating. The ethnicity of those described as “British” should be recorded too. Only then will we have actual transparency
When evaluating the reliability of this report from the Centre for Migration Control, it is important to understand that while the raw numbers are generally real, having been obtained via Freedom of Information requests to UK police forces, the methodology, calculations, and conclusions have significant flaws.
An analysis of this type of data by organisations like the Oxford University Migration Observatory, Home Office statisticians, and independent fact-checkers reveals several major issues that make the report's conclusions highly misleading.
Arrests Are Not the Same as Convictions
The report bases its statistics entirely on arrests. Under UK law, an arrest is an investigative tool used by the police and does not mean a crime was actually committed or that the person is guilty. Statistics from the Ministry of Justice and Home Office audits consistently show that a significant portion of arrests do not lead to a charge, and even fewer lead to a conviction. Furthermore, data analysed by the Ministry of Justice shows that proportionately fewer foreign nationals end up in prison for sexual offences compared to British nationals relative to their total arrest numbers, which means looking at arrests alone heavily inflates the perceived crime rate.
The Failure to Adjust for Age and Sex Demographics
This is the most critical statistical error in the report. Crime statistics are heavily influenced by age and sex: young men aged between 16 and 30 are statistically much more likely to commit crimes than any other demographic group. The UK’s domestic population includes millions of elderly people and children who rarely, if ever, commit violent or sexual crimes. In contrast, the UK's migrant population is heavily skewed towards young, working-age adults and young men. Because the Centre for Migration Control compared the entire domestic British population, including children and the elderly, against a predominantly young adult migrant population without adjusting for age or sex distribution, the comparison is statistically invalid. When experts control for age and sex, the statistical gap between foreign nationals and British citizens drops dramatically.
Outdated and Inaccurate Population Denominators
To calculate an arrest rate per 1,000, you must divide the number of arrests by an accurate total population number for that specific group. The report's Migrant Crime League Table fails here. The report explicitly states it relies on Office for National Statistics population data from 2021. However, the arrest data is from 2024. Between 2021 and 2024, the UK experienced historically high levels of net migration. Specifically for nationalities highlighted by the report, such as Afghans, the population in the UK grew exponentially after 2021 due to resettlement schemes following the Taliban's return to power. By dividing 2024 arrests by an outdated, much smaller 2021 population figure, the report severely overestimates and inflates the actual per-capita arrest rates for those nationalities.
Overcounting Transient Populations
The police record the nationality of anyone they arrest, including tourists, seasonal workers, individuals in transit at airports, and short-term visitors. These individuals are counted in the report’s arrest numbers, but they are completely absent from the official resident population statistics. This mismatch naturally creates an artificially inflated crime rate for foreign nationals.
Official Context versus Report Claims
To put the report's claims into perspective, official data published by the Oxford Migration Observatory notes that in England and Wales, non-UK nationals make up roughly 12.4 per cent of the prison population and account for about 13 per cent of all cautions and convictions. When compared to the fact that non-citizens make up roughly 12 per cent of the overall UK population aged 16 and over, the actual rate of proven criminality among foreign nationals is broadly proportionate to their share of the population. This completely contradicts the claim that migrants are committing crimes at multiple times the rate of British citizens.
Conclusion
While the Centre for Migration Control did compile real Freedom of Information data regarding raw arrest numbers, you cannot trust the report’s conclusions. By conflating arrests with guilt, failing to control for age and gender, and using outdated population figures, the report manipulates the data to present an inaccurate and artificially inflated picture of migrant criminality.
Whilst such research is vital in exposing the extent of the societal damage caused by unchecked and uncontrolled immigration, the mention of Robert Jenrick - who has now adopted a populist perspective on the topic - rather makes my blood boil: he was, after all, central to the advent of the Boriswave
As a londoner.
I really don't care.
As a starting point this is brilliant analysis and superb FOI and collaboration and collation for pulling it all together. Valuable work.
If they all had jobs and a new Telly, then they would probably not feel so racially oppressed.
Many immigrants came illegally to the UK (like Albanians) and that makes them more prone to the underworld and illegal activities. In the US people from South America tend to be more prone to criminal activity than let's say people from other parts of the world just because it's more hard for South Americans to have legal status in the US.