Fact check: How do migrant crime rates compare to native-born crime rates in the UK?

1. Why there is no single “migrant versus native” crime rate number that settles the debate

The UK government does not compile crimes by immigration status into a single comparable rate, and official guidance redirects such queries to offender and prosecution data held by the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service, producing fragmented datasets rather than a single metric ^[1]. This institutional fragmentation means researchers and politicians must piece together police proceedings, prosecutions and convictions and match them to population denominators — a process that introduces methodological choices that substantially affect outcomes. Different studies therefore compare different things (proceedings, charges, convictions, incarceration), which explains why headlines often contradict one another despite drawing on the same raw records ^[1].

2. High-profile claims: overstated multipliers and disputed percentages

Several high-profile public claims about migrant involvement in sexual offences and other crimes have been debunked or revised down after reanalysis. For example, a widely publicised claim that Afghans were 22 times more likely to be convicted of rape than British nationals was found to be an overestimate; later work using police data and country-of-birth denominators produced an adjusted estimate closer to three times higher, illustrating how denominator choice and scope transform headline multipliers ^[3]. Likewise, assertions that a large share of London sexual offences were committed by foreign nationals were traced to misinterpretation of proceedings versus convictions and do not stand up as simple statements of comparative risk ^[2].

3. Media and think-piece signals: rising convictions for some foreign-national groups

Press reporting between 2024–2025 flagged an increase in convictions of foreign nationals for certain offences: one outlet reported a 62% rise in sexual offence convictions of foreign nationals between 2021 and 2024, and government figures cited by ministers have suggested specific nationalities with higher conviction rates for particular crimes ^{[5] [4]}. These pieces rely on absolute conviction counts and short-term trends rather than age-, sex- and population-adjusted rates, and they typically do not account for enforcement priorities, changes in reporting, or the composition of migrant populations — factors that can drive apparent increases even if underlying per-capita risks are stable.

4. International context and counter-evidence: studies that find no overall migrant crime surge

Comparative research often contradicts blanket claims that migrants are more criminal than native-born populations. For instance, a May 2024 study in another jurisdiction found immigrants had similar or lower incarceration likelihoods than native-born people, with undocumented migrants less likely to be incarcerated than the native-born population — evidence that migration per se does not uniformly raise crime rates ^[6]. Such findings highlight the importance of cross-jurisdictional context and the danger of extrapolating from limited UK subgroups or short-term trends to a nationwide, long-term pattern.

5. Methodological challenges that drive disagreement and politicisation

Disagreements stem from four recurring methodological problems: ^[7] choice of denominator (country of birth vs nationality vs estimated migrant population), ^[8] outcome measured (police stop, charge, prosecution, conviction, incarceration), ^[9] time window and cohort effects, and ^[10] selection and reporting biases from media and political actors who emphasise certain datasets. These technical choices consistently shift results, producing claims that range from “migrants commit less crime” to “certain foreign-national groups have high conviction rates,” depending on the analytic frame ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

6. What the different stakeholders are emphasising and why that matters

Politicians and some media outlets emphasise conviction-count increases and nationality-specific findings to argue for tougher immigration controls, signalling an agenda that links migration policy to public safety ^{[5] [4]}. Other analysts and studies stress broader population-adjusted comparisons and international evidence to counter alarmist narratives and highlight that many migrants have similar or lower offending rates than natives ^{[6] [2]}. Both perspectives draw on legitimate data but use different metrics and policy aims, which explains recurring public confusion and contested headlines.

7. Bottom line for readers: what can be reliably said and what remains uncertain

It is reliable to say the UK has no single, government-produced statistic that neatly compares migrant and native crime rates nationwide, and that several high-profile multipliers have been reduced or disputed once analysts used consistent denominators and outcomes ^{[1] [3]}. It is uncertain — and data-dependent — whether particular foreign-national groups have higher rates for certain crimes; short-term conviction rises have been reported, but their interpretation requires careful adjustment for population size, composition and enforcement changes ^{[5] [4]}. Readers should treat single-number claims skeptically and look for analyses that state the denominator, the outcome measured and the time period.