What happened in Sweden over the last 40 years? Studies on crime, gender, ethnicity and social class.

In Sweden and around the world, studies have consistently shown that immigrants commit more crime than non-immigrants, or natives.

Findings of immigrant overrepresentation in crime have led to beliefs that a growth in the immigrant population will beget more crime. Yet, Swedish crime rates have remained stable over the past 40-years despite a rapidly growing immigrant population. It is unclear why crime rates have not concomitantly increased with growths in the immigrant population.

In this study we aim to understand how immigration is associated with crime.

To achieve our aims we analyze crime and immigration at both the individual- and area-level to test two competing hypotheses:Immigration has directly increased crime in Sweden.Immigration has not directly increased crime in Sweden, but resulted in a substitution in social groups leading to a social upgrading and less crime among the non-immigrant population.We ask seven specific research questions:How has crime and immigration developed in Sweden and comparable countries between 1975-2019?How has crime and immigration developed in different municipalities?How has the composition of the crime suspects and those prosecuted for different types of crime changed with respect to ethnicity, social class, gender, health, and childhood conditions?What do criminal and social careers look like across generations among individuals?How do individuals interpret their development with regard to crime and other life events?What do "co-offending" networks look like in terms of ethnicity and other social factors for different types of crime?How have the characteristics of persons suspected for or prosecuted for certain types of crime changed?