Written by Noah Carl.
Muslims commit a disproportionate amount of crime in Europe. Groups like Moroccans, Algerians, Somalis, Turks, Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese and Afghans are overrepresented in the crime figures – sometimes dramatically. This is true in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany and France.
But is it true in Britain? The answer is widely held to be “yes”, based on a table that periodically goes viral on social media. The most up-to-date version of that table is shown below.
As you can see, Muslims make up 18% of the prison population in England and Wales, despite being only 7% of the general population.1 Hence they are overrepresented by a factor of 2.6. End of story? Not so fast.
There are two straightforward explanations for the overrepresentation of Muslims in prison. And most of the available evidence suggests that British Muslims actually don’t commit a lot of crime.
