Foreign nationals are underrepresented as a proportion of prisoners jailed in England and Wales when compared with rates of incarceration among British citizens of similar age, an analysis of government data has found.
In June, 12.4% of prisoners were non-UK nationals, excluding people with no recorded nationality, according to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory. The figure roughly mirrors official statistics indicating that about 12% of the overall population in England and Wales last year were foreign nationals.
However, the centre’s analysis notes that young adults are more likely to commit crimes regardless of nationality, and non-citizens in the UK are more likely to be young adults. As a result, the researchers said they would expect foreign nationals to make up 15% of the prison population if they had the same imprisonment rates as British citizens of the same age (16-24).
While non-citizens made up a higher proportion of people convicted for sexual and theft offences over the past decade, researchers cautioned that a lack of data for offenders’ age and sex complicated the picture and meant it was hard to make clear assertions.
The picture was more complicated for certain crimes such as sexual offences, where foreign nationals were overrepresented among those cautioned or convicted, at 15%, but underrepresented in the prison population, making up 10%.
Organisers involved in summer protests outside asylum-seeker accommodation sought to reignite the issue by staging a demonstration outside Downing Street on Wednesday, where they were opposed by anti-fascist activists.
The former Conservative London mayoral candidate Susan Hall was among those who addressed the “Pink Ladies” group. Far-right activists have also attached themselves to the group’s protests in an attempt to exploit tensions around the housing of male asylum seekers.
While the crowd on Whitehall was made up largely of a few hundred women dressed in pink and waving union flags, others present included far-right activists such as Steve Laws, of the Homeland party, as well as the Ukip leader, Nick Tenconi.
A “women against the far right” counter-demonstration on the other side of Whitehall included the MP Diane Abbott and the former Big Brother contestant Narinder Kaur, who said she had come to oppose what she said was the Pink Ladies’ aim of spreading fear about asylum seekers.
“The truth is that there is a sexual violence epidemic against women in our country but if you are teaching your daughter to fear only one type of man then you are putting your daughter back,” she said. “The sad fact is that the data shows women are already in danger from men they know. Women are not a weapon to be used to disguise racism.”
Hall told the crowd: “I am a mother and a grandmother and we are worried when we have young men who are coming here from cultures that do not look after women, we have got every cause to be concerned.”
The Pink Ladies group grew out of the protests outside hotels in Epping and Canary Wharf, describing itself as a movement of women. One of its main leaders is Orla Minihane, a Reform UK official and electoral candidate in Essex.
The Migration Observatory report is the first significant analysis of relevant data since the summer protests and attempts by Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick to link sexual violence to migrants and asylum seekers.
Available data from the Ministry of Justice allows the researchers to find that non-citizens are underrepresented in the prison population, but the lack of data on age and sex meant the same comparison could not be made for convictions.
Ben Brindle, a researcher at the Migration Observatory, said: “There may be differences in rates of criminality between British citizens and non-UK nationals, but we can’t pinpoint the precise reasons. Much of this will be explained by differences in age, sex and socioeconomic status.”
