Unravelling Relations Between Immigration, Crime and Superdiversity in the United States of America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

A substantial number of western cities and its neighbourhoods, in Europe, the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand became super diverse, majority-minority cities and in most of these cities the “true” citizen is an immigrant (old- and newcomer) who lives in these cities for four generations. This change in western cities with a long mostly unknown tradition of immigration [1, 2] to majority-minority cities may have an impact on the development of crime. Scheffer claimed that newcomers unfamiliar with the habits, norms and values of their new fatherland first do become victims of crime, and then become more susceptible to witness perpetrators committing crime [3]. Both victimization and witness experiences can lower the threshold for committing a crime. This cycle is documented for bicycle theft [4]. The assumption is that immigrants, refugees and expats are vulnerable as newcomers in western countries. On top of these newcomers’ experiences with crime, the first up to fourth generation is excluded, discriminated and polarized in education, healthcare, workplace and neighbourhoods [5]. Possible causes are clashes between individualism and collectivism, racism and exclusion, a difference between mother and fatherland cultures concerning requirements, norms and values, polarization between WE (Our Kind of People) and THEM (Other Kind of People) and for African immigrants and refugees a community law system versus a criminal justice system [6]. The consequences of the above-mentioned system errors for the way in which immigrants, refugees and expats experience crime are documented in Dutch books and dissertations, like ‘Moroccan in Europe, Criminal in the Netherlands’ [7] more family violence [8] among Dutch-Moroccans then original Dutch and more short-term psychosis among people of colour [9]. This article suggests that victimology as a science has failed to reflect the contemporary transitions of cities and neighbourhoods where immigrants, refugees and expats together became a clear majority in super diverse cities and neighbourhoods [10]. Secondly this article presents international data about the suggestion that immigration causes more crime, with the champion of this message Donald Trump. In the United States of America and Europe there is no proof for an increase of crime as a consequence of newcomers. The opposite might even be true. Newcomers and immigrants however are more often victims of crime than original indigenous people [11, 12].