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They talk about it in the article > People from foreign backgrounds are suspected of crimes more often than people from a Swedish background [...] In a later s

• facepalm 10y ago
  I'd say THAT is irrelevant. If I become victim of a crime, it doesn't console me if the perpetrator is poor. I just don't want to become a victim of a crime.
  • croon 10y ago
    The point isn't to console you. The point is to explain why crime happens, so it can be mitigated. Ie: * Stop immigration. OR * Integrate poor people into society, the workforce, etc.
    • leereeves 10y ago
      Those aren't in conflict. Immigration of more poor people from a different culture makes the already difficult task of integrating poor people even more difficult.
    • facepalm 10y ago
      The question was "is there a problem with immigration". How to mitigate crime is only the second step. And it will be difficult to mitigate it if you don't accept the causes. Of course leftists believe that rich countries like Sweden are to be blamed for the poverty of people from other countries. I am also not saying poor people shouldn't be helped. But there doesn't seem to be a universally working formula available. Just as there doesn't seem a formula for making strict Muslims tolerant of homosexuality and freedom of women. If you are hanged by a radical Muslim because you are gay, it doesn't help you that he wouldn't have hanged you if only he had received the right educational interventions beforehand. ----- Edit: sure, Christians can be dangerous radicals, too. If they were a significant part of refugees, that would be topical, too. The problem seems, rather, that many refugees come from countries that skipped the enlightenment and are stuck in the middle ages in some things. I don't have statistics on radical muslims, but there are whole countries where gays are being hanged. You can google the pictures yourself. Here is a list of "Ehrenmorde" in Germany: http://www.ehrenmord.de/doku/2016/doku_2016.php http://www.ehrenmord.de/doku/2016/doku_2016.php Ehrenmorde are cases were people are being murdered by family members (usually brothers murdering their sisters, but sometimes also men are the victims) for bringing "shame" to the family - like having extramarital sex, leaving the religion, stuff like that. Some of the freedoms we take for granted are simply not taken for granted in other cultures. And I don't think there exists a formula for convincing people from such cultures of our values.
      • tomlock 10y ago
        Got any numbers on how many Muslims are "radical" compared to Christians? Christians also perform exorcisms on gay children and in some cases lynch gay people. Keep in mind that deporting radical christian swedes would also be a good move if retaining a cultural tolerance for gay people is a goal.
  • brown9-2 10y ago
    It is relevant to the topic of how to prevent crime - it tells you that eliminating immigration won't help, but that addressing poverty will.
    • aaron-lebo 10y ago
      Cutting off immigration is not some kind of autosolution, but if immigrants commit higher levels of crime compared to the rest of the population, eliminating immigration would help.
    • nmeofthestate 10y ago
      Well, except some immigration adds to the number of people in poverty, so avoiding immigration that does that would address poverty and by extension crime. This is reasonable, unless the theory is that when an immigrant arrives in Sweden, a person already in poverty gets 'promoted' and the immigrant takes their poverty space, thus keeping poverty levels constant.
      • Voloskaya 10y ago
        One of the reason Sweden is welcoming migrants is because the birth rate is becoming really low, so there is need for new workers paying taxes. They are accepting more poors (and by extension statistically more crime-prone) people today, to hopefully have a still sane and stable economy in the future (thus with less poors).
        • facepalm 10y ago
          That may be their theory, but where is the validation of the theory? What are the reasons to assume it will work out that way? --- Edit: reason for assuming it won't: there are many countries with a huge population that are nevertheless poor. So number of people alone doesn't seem to help against poverty. Also, there still seem to be poor native Swedish people, so apparently Sweden does not have a working formula for lifting people out of poverty (except giving them government money, but that wouldn't scale in the way you propose - that wouldn't yield more taxes and riches in return).
  • tomlock 10y ago
    So you think it would be fair to suggest the same restrictions on poor people as people are suggesting we place on immigrants?
    • facepalm 10y ago
      I think it would make sense to reduce the number of poor people. If taking in immigrants is likely to increase the number of poor people, there is a problem. The discussion is not about what should be done, only about Sweden's claim that there is no problem. If they say "yes there are criminals, but only because they are poor", they are dodging the issue. ----- edit: Hacker News doesn't let me post more comments. So here is the comment I wrote, but I'll probably refrain from further ones: "poor swedes could be deported and rich immigrants could take their place" This is already happening in a way - it is called gentrification (not replacement with rich immigrants, but in general rich people will cluster together). But Swedes formed a "state" and endowed some people with citizenship, but also giving them responsibility for their own people. So their responsibility should be to their own people first. Of course you can argue that forming such a state is immoral, but I think there are some practical arguments in favor of it. As history has shown, states are very well capable of deporting significant fractions of their citizens, though. But presumably atm Swedes rate the ensurance to not be deported higher than the inconvenience of living with poor people. The gender angle: yes, that is a popular argument in Germany, "but the refugees are only criminal because they are all men". But it should be possible to take that into account statistically. And even if the higher proportion of males would be the only issue, it still wouldn't change the fact that immigrants are causing problems. After all, they have a higher proportion of males.
      • tomlock 10y ago
        >I think it would make sense to reduce the number of poor people. This could be achieved in a number of ways. For example, poor swedes could be deported and rich immigrants could take their place - this would actually be more effective than halting immigration altogether. Another form of issue dodging is when people suggest that immigrants are the issue without admitting that the situation is a complex combination of factors. One of the best predictors of criminality from a statistical viewpoint is gender. Of course, excluding all men from immigrating into our countries probably strikes most as inhumane :) To say the immigrant status of a person is to be specially focused on seems particularly convenient, but not humane. edit: Its funny you're willing to accept taking gender into account statistically, but not the wealth of most immigrants.
• lngnmn 10y ago
  This is plainly wrong. Socioeconomic factors are not the major ones. Culture, habits and social conditioning in general are. People who do not share (or even comprehend) the shared values of other cultures have no respect to them and perceive others as "aliens". This works both ways. The cultural incompatibility and different social conditioning are the major factors. Basically, well-educated people of any origin would behave more or less similarly, according to common shared values (or a subculture) while on the other side of the spectrum the differences could be huge and fundamental. One just have to call the things by its real names.
  • peteretep 10y ago
    > Socioeconomic factors are > not the major ones ... is your opinion, contradicted by the available evidence. You finish with a suggestion to call things "by its real names", so I will: pushing a false narrative of cultural superiority is racism. Begone.
    • aaron-lebo 10y ago
      Cultures advance. Some are more refined and progressive than others. The practice of throwing homosexuals to their deaths is obviously not enlightened. Of course other cultures have their faults, too, but to argue that comparing cultures is racism is willfully ignorant.
      • peteretep 10y ago
        The parent comment stated that differences were due to culture and not baseline economic status. This is inspite of evidence. What alternative explanation - other than racism or ignorance - is there for that mistruth?
        • aaron-lebo 10y ago
          Culture != race.
          • 10y ago
• deleted 10y ago
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• AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > 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.
  • matthewmacleod 10y ago
    Sure, if you deliberately misinterpret things you can make them sound as bad as you want.
  • AlexTelon 10y ago
    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?
    • deleted 10y ago
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    • Exofunctor 10y ago
      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.
      • SamBam 10y ago
        > 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.
• edblarney 10y ago
  "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." This is a classic red-herring. 'They were poor therefore they have bad behaviours'. The failure of the logic is the assumption of correlation/causation. One might argue that 'bad behaviour will lead one to being poor'. I have no doubt that immigrants from Somalia will have a harder time than 'Sven Swede' growing up. At the same time, there are some truly terrible behaviours among specific immigrant groups. This is the hardest part: the pro and anti immigrant camps are speaking past each other. Important note: For some reason, ethnic minorities in Europe are considerably more marginalized then they are in the US - it's completely different. Europe has a 'strong social safety net' - and 'social policy' of welfare etc. - BUT - they have very strong sense of ethnic identity, and very close social circles. A young Somalian may have very few Swedish friends. In the US - people are far more gregarious and open personally. It's nothing to see a table of people of different ethnic backgrounds - but the social safety net is usually much weaker, no health insurance etc.. I live in Montreal, we have a good chunk of Muslims. They don't look too 'out of place'. You can't tell they are Muslim by looking. They could be Indian, Southern Italian, Greek. But go to Belgium - the various Muslim communities are distinct, and ethnic identity is obvious. I've never seen a Burqa in Montreal, and Hijab not too often. In Belgium they are all over. Muslims live in 'broad areas' in Montreal, but in Belgium very specific communities. It's a little bit of a mystery to me but I think it has everything to do with 'very traditional and conservative' social culture in Europe - even though paradoxically they are 'intellectually liberal'. Example: if you drink with a nice, well educated, open minded and kind Belgian - you may hear an 'African joke'. It's not considered as racist as it would be in America. Yet the Belgian will likely be more supportive of giving refuge and social services to the Africans than the average American. It's weird. Sweden has a notorious degree of censorship in their press - they self-censor to control information in terms of what they 'deem is best for Sweden'. They will absolutely suppress information if it may cause some populist sentiment. It's just part of their culture. The problem, of course, is that by suppressing real dialogue, then the loudest and craziest right-wing voices are the one's that get hard, and they cause a fuss, which is bad, and it may come to a breaking point. I suggest that more transparency on the issues would be better for all involved.
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• Exofunctor 10y ago
  > they commit the same amount of crime as poor deprived members of indigenous populations. That's probably why people want to stop importing them en masse.