Crime doesn't rise in high immigration areas – it falls, says study | UK news | The Observer

Crime doesn't rise in high immigration areas – it falls, says study | UK news | The Observer

Marian Fitzgerald, a visiting professor of criminology at the University of Kent, said that the night-time economy, and the numbers of people who could afford to drink alcohol and socialise, was a key driver of violence.

"Most violent crime is associated with affluence. Most immigrants are not affluent so it's not surprising that immigration has no impact on that large proportion of total violence which is a function of affluence."

David Wilson, professor of criminology and criminal justice at Birmingham City University agreed that recession tended to reduce crime because less people could afford to go out and drink. However, he also said broader factors such as increased access to information had made people acutely sensitised to violence.

"Globalisation through the internet, through media images has meant that there is a greater intolerance to violence. There is more of a global acceptance that inter-personal violent crime is something that we should not be engaged in."

Wilson added a third factor also came into play, saying that the type of immigrant attracted to Britain tended to contradict the scrounger stereoptype.

"Historically, people who move from one nation state to another are the kinds of people who are more entrepreneurial. Far from coming to live off benefits, the people who tend to want to move are the ones who want to get a job and get ahead," he added.

Previous research by the LSE team revealed that enclaves with high numbers of immigrants experienced less crime than neighbourhoods with fewer arrivals from abroad. The research focused on neighbourhoods that had an immigrant population larger than 30%. Bell and his team found "strong and consistent evidence that enclaves have lower crime experiences than otherwise observably similar neighbourhoods that have a lower immigrant share of the population".