Recent revelations based on data from Statistics Denmark shed light on a concerning trend: immigrants and their descendants in Denmark were convicted of violent crimes at a significantly higher rate than individuals of Danish origin between 2010 and 2021.
The statistics paint a stark picture, particularly for young men from predominantly Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). They emerged as the demographic most frequently convicted, with a glaring disparity in cases such as rape, where their conviction rate exceeded that of native Danes by over sevenfold.
Denmark, distinct from some of its European counterparts, employs a classification system for immigrants based on their origin, categorizing them into “western” and “non-western” groups. The latter further subdivided to pinpoint those from Muslim-majority nations in the MENA region, drawing attention to significant societal challenges.
Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye, in 2020, emphasized the need for this distinction to foster transparent political discourse, noting the specific issues associated with migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
Analysis conducted by the Patterns in Humanity Substack reveals alarming trends. Immigrants and their descendants from countries like Kuwait, Tunisia, and Somalia were, on average, eight times more likely to be convicted of violent crimes during the specified period in Denmark. Even after adjusting for demographic factors such as age and sex, this ratio remained strikingly high at six to one.
Similarly, individuals from other MENA countries, such as Lebanon, Jordan, Uganda, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, and Egypt, exhibited markedly higher conviction rates compared to the Danish average.
Conversely, migrants from several European nations, as well as the Philippines, Indonesia, China, India, and Argentina, displayed lower conviction rates than native Danes. Notably, Japanese migrants had no recorded convictions for violent crimes throughout the 11-year period.
In 2021 alone, out of 5,921 violent crime convictions in Denmark, 71 percent involved suspects of Danish origin, leaving the remaining 29 percent attributed to immigrants or their descendants. This demographic accounted for just 14 percent of the population at the time, resulting in an overall conviction rate 2.5 times higher than that of native Danes.
Looking more closely at immigrants from Western countries, they made up just 5 percent of the population and were involved in only 3.8 percent of the convictions. This shows a big difference compared to the worrying trends seen in immigrants from non-Western countries.
