Claim: Recently-arrived asylum seekers are perpetrating the majority of crime in Sweden.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Immigration and crime
text: study published in 1997 attempted to explain the higher than average crime rates among immigrants to Sweden. It found that between 20 and 25 percent of asylum seekers to Sweden had experienced physical torture, and many suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Other refugees had witnessed a close relative being killed. The 2005 study reported that persons from North Africa and Western Asia were over-represented in crime statistics, whereas a 1997 paper additionally found immigrants from Finland, South America, Arab world and Eastern Europe to be over-represented in crime statistics. Studies have found that native-born Swedes with high levels of unemployment

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: noted that while immigrants were disproportionately represented among crime suspects, many of the victims of immigrant crimes were other immigrants. He also opined that "Immigration will come with some cost, and we will likely have a bit more crime in a society with low crime rates". A Swedish Police report from May 2016 found that there have been 123 incidents of sexual molestation in the country's public baths and pools in 2015 (112 of them were directed against girls). In 55% of cases, the perpetrator could be reasonably identified. From these identified perpetrators, 80% were of foreign origin. The same

title: Immigration and crime
text: Swedish police from October 2015 to January 2016, 5,000 police calls out of 537,466 involved asylum seekers and refugees. According to Felipe Estrada, professor of criminology at Stockholm University, this shows how the media gives disproportionate attention to and exaggerates the alleged criminal involvement of asylum seekers and refugees. Henrik Selin, head of the Department for Intercultural Dialogue at the Swedish Institute, noted that allegations of a surge in immigrant crime after the intake of more than 160,000 immigrants in 2015 have been “highly exaggerated... there is nothing to support the claim that the crime rate took off after the

title: Crime in Sweden
text: past five years were refugees and immigrants (Southern Africans, Northern Africans, Arabs, Middle Easterns, and Afghans); Swedish Television's investigating journalists found that in cases where the victims didn't know the attackers, the proportion of immigrant sex offenders was more than 80%. Alleged immigrant crime in Sweden made international news and what has been called a "diplomatic incident" in February 2017 when US president Donald Trump told a rally in Melbourne, Florida on 18 February 2017 that Sweden has ""problems that they never thought possible" and "You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden" " following his watching of Ami

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: crime rates among immigrants to Sweden. It found that between 20 and 25 percent of asylum seekers to Sweden had experienced physical torture, and many suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Other refugees had witnessed a close relative being killed. The 2005 study reported that persons from North Africa and the Middle East had the highest overrepresentation in crime statistics, whereas those born in Western Europe, South East Asia and the United States had the lowest representation. whereas a 1997 paper additionally found immigrants from Finland, South America, Arab world and Eastern Europe to be overrepresented in crime statistics. Studies have

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: place of birth are at play, such as education level and poverty, and that similar trends occur in European countries that have not taken in a lot of immigrants in recent years. According to data gathered by Swedish police from October 2015 to January 2016, 5,000 police calls out of 537,466 involved asylum seekers and refugees. According to Felipe Estrada, professor of criminology at Stockholm University, this shows how the media gives disproportionate attention to and exaggerates the alleged criminal involvement of asylum seekers and refugees. Speaking in February 2017, Manne Gerell, a doctoral student in criminology at Malmo University,

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: 2015 Ikea stabbing attack, 2016 Sweden asylum centre stabbing, and the 2017 Stockholm attack. A 2014 survey of several studies found that people with foreign background are, on average, two times more likely to commit crimes than those born in Sweden. This figure has remained stable since the 1970s, despite the changes in numbers of immigrants and their country of origin. Some studies reporting a link on immigration and crime have been criticized for not taking into account the population's age, employment and education level, all of which affect level of crime. In general, research that takes these factors into

title: Crime in Sweden
text: Horowitz's appearance on Tucker Carlson. According to the New York Times, Trump aides "sought to clarify that Mr. Trump’s remarks were about a rising tide of crime in general". He later tweeted that the " ... media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!" Crime in Sweden Crime in Sweden describes an act defined in the Swedish Penal Code () or in another Swedish law or statutory instrument for which a sanction is prescribed. Figures from the 2013 Swedish Crime Survey (SCS) show that exposure to crime decreased from 2005 to

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: report found 319 cases of sexual assault on public streets and parks in 2015. In these cases, only 17 suspected perpetrators have been identified, 4 of them Swedish nationals with the remainder being of foreign origin. Another 17 were arrested, but not identified. According to Dagens Nyheter in 2017, at least 90% of all murders and attempted murders through gun violence in Sweden are performed by either immigrants or those with at least one immigrant parent and according to Expressen, 94.5% of all members of career criminal gangs in Stockholm, Sweden, are either immigrants or have at least one immigrant

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: "there is no basis for drawing the conclusion that crime rates are soaring in Sweden and that that is related to immigration". According to official statistics, the reported crime rate in Sweden has risen since 2005 whereas annual government surveys show that the number of Swedes experiencing crime has remained steady since 2005, even as Sweden has taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees over the same period. Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist at the University of Stockholm, said foreign-born residents are twice as likely to be registered for a crime than native Swedes, but that other factors beyond

title: Immigration and crime
text: whereas annual government surveys show that the number of Swedes experiencing crime remain steady since 2005, even as Sweden has taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees over the same period. Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist at the University of Stockholm, said foreign-born residents are twice as likely to be registered for a crime as native Swedes but that other factors beyond place of birth are at play, such as education level and poverty, and that similar trends occur in European countries that have not taken in a lot of immigrants in recent years. According to data gathered by

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: by 2030. Those with immigrant background are over-represented in Swedish crime statistics, but research shows that socioeconomic factors, such as unemployment, poverty, exclusion language, and other skills explain most of the differences in crime rates between immigrants and natives. A 1996 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) explored crime among immigrants and children of immigrants between 1985 and 1989, compared to the rest of the Swedish population. The tendency, according to the report, was that the more serious the crime, the higher number of reported crimes had a foreign born perpetrator. The highest shares was in

title: Crime in Sweden
text: Sweden to describe the situation in the affected areas. In February 2017, UKIP British politician Nigel Farage defined the Swedish city of Malmö as the "rape capital of Europe", and linked the high number of rapes in Sweden to the immigrants and asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East; he was subsequently criticized by the BBC because, at the time, there were no data available on the ethnicity of the attackers. One year later, in August 2018 the BBC itself reported that rape statistics in Sweden show that 58% of men convicted of rape and attempted rape over the

title: Immigration and crime
text: not just one report") and a culture where women are encouraged to report rapes. Stina Holmberg at the National Council for Crime Prevention, noted that "there is no basis for drawing the conclusion that crime rates are soaring in Sweden and that that is related to immigration". In February 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump asserted that crime was surging in Sweden due to immigration. According to FactCheck.Org, Trump's claim was an exaggeration and noted that "experts said there is no evidence of a major crime wave." According to official statistics, the reported crime rate in Sweden has risen since 2005

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: parent. The share of foreigners admitted to the Swedish Prison and Probation Service increased from 26% in 2003 to 33% in 2013 according to its statistics. In its 2017 report on organized crime in Sweden, police stated that in most areas of Sweden with the highest crime rates ("sv: särskilt utsatta områden") population share of immigrants is around 50-60%. In recent years some of these areas have experienced riots such as 2008 Malmö mosque riots, 2010 Rinkeby riots, 2016 riots in Sweden and 2017 Rinkeby riots. Immigrants have also been associated with a series of highly publicised crimes, including the

title: Crime in Sweden
text: said migrants in Sweden have been associated with a crime wave, and “they often times try to cover up some of these crimes.” Henrik Selin, a political scientist and deputy director of the Swedish Institute, described these news reports of an immigrant-related crime surge as "highly exaggerated and not based in facts." According to Martin Gelin of the Swedish newspaper "Dagens Nyheter", “countless right-wing media in the United States that have long been reporting that Sweden is heading for total collapse.” Swedish-Kurdish economist Tino Sanandaji said that due to fear of being perceived as racists, it has been taboo in

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: account does not support the idea that there is a link between immigration and crime. The last government report that collected statistics on immigration and crime was a 2005 study by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), and it found that people of foreign background were 2.5 times more likely to be suspected of crimes than people with a Swedish background, including immigrants being four times more likely to be suspected of lethal violence and robbery, five times more likely to be investigated for sex crimes, and three times more likely to be investigated for violent assault. The

title: Immigration to Sweden
text: foreign background and 40% were born in the Middle East and Africa, with young men from Afghanistan numbering 45 stood out as being the most next most common country of birth after Sweden. When only analysing rape assault (Swedish: "överfallsvåldtäkt") cases, that is cases where perpetrator and victim were not previously acquainted, 97 out of 129 were born outside Europe. Viral falsehoods have circulated in recent years that tie immigrants and refugees to an alleged surge of crime in Sweden. According to Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist at Stockholm University, "What we’re hearing is a very, very extreme exaggeration based on

title: Immigration and crime
text: 160,000 came in 2015.” While it’s true that immigrants have been over-represented among those committing crimes—particularly in some suburban communities heavily populated by immigrants, he said—the issue of crime and immigration is complex. Speaking in February 2017, Manne Gerell, a doctoral student in criminology at Malmo University, noted that while immigrants where disproportionately represented among crime suspects, many of the victims of immigrant crimes were other immigrants. A Swedish Police report from May 2016 found that there have been 123 incidents of sexual molestation in the country's public baths and pools in 2015 (112 of them were directed against girls).

title: Immigration and crime
text: Granskning analysed the total of 843 district court cases from the five preceding years and found that 58% of all convicted of rape had a foreign background and 40% were born in the Middle East and Africa, with young men from Afghanistan numbering 45 stood out as being the most next most common country of birth after Sweden. When only analysing rape assault (Swedish: "överfallsvåldtäkt") cases, that is cases where perpetrator and victim were not previously acquainted, 97 out of 129 were born outside Europe. Viral falsehoods have circulated in recent years that tie immigrants and refugees to an alleged