Over half of all of the young migrant men from Somalia, Lebanon, and Morocco living in Denmark have been convicted of at least one crime before the age of 30.
The figures come from a report by think tank Unitos that delved into crime statistics kept by the Danish Ministry of Justice and looked at the crime rates for men born between 1985 and 1987.
The report found that young migrants from certain backgrounds were especially prone to criminal behaviour, with 222 of the 357 Somali young men, 62 per cent, having been convicted of a crime such as violence, vandalism, and theft before the age of 30, Jyllands Posten reports.
For Lebanese migrants, the rate was 60 per cent, and for Moroccans the rate was 52 per cent.
Migrants from Iraq, Iran, and the former Yugoslavia saw rates of 40 per cent.
In contrast, only 18 per cent of Danish-born citizens had been convicted by 30.
Lasse Birk Olesen, the co-founder of Unitos, commented on the results, saying: “The figures show that a very large proportion of young men from some of the major immigrant countries have been convicted of breaking criminal laws.”
Criminologist David Sausdal, however, expressed caution at the conclusions of the study, claiming that socioeconomic factors should be examined and more research done into migrant crime statistics.
Last year in June, Danish Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen admitted that the country had a problem with migrant criminals following a media investigation that revealed Somali migrants were vastly over-represented in cases of violent crime.
Poulsen said the data “clearly shows that there is a big problem with criminal foreigners that we should not have in our society”.
Earlier in the year, the then-Danish government said it would not rule out deporting Somali migrants by force with then-Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen saying: “We have an increasingly good cooperation, which the Somalis attach great importance to in confidentiality. Therefore, I cannot go into detail with it. But it is a collaboration that also makes it possible in certain situations to force people to Somalia, if necessary.”
Somali migrants have also been shown to have much higher rates of welfare use and unemployment in countries like Switzerland, where more than 80 per cent of Somalis do not work.
