Data from Statistics Denmark showed that young men who hailed from predominantly Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa were convicted most often, especially when it came to rape, where the ratio of convictions compared to native Danes was more than seven to one.
Denmark, unlike some other European nations, classifies immigrants into "western" and "non-western" origin, with the latter category further divided to distinguish those from Muslim majority (MENA) nations. In 2020, Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye said the distinction "will give a more honest political discussion about the minority of migrants who are very big challenges in our society," pointing out that, "we in Denmark don't really have problems with people from Latin America and the Far East. We have problems with people from the Middle East and North Africa."
According to the data, which was reviewed and charted on the Patters in Humanity Substack, immigrants and their descendants from Kuwait, Tunisia, and Somalia were, on average, eight times more likely to be convicted of violent crimes in Denmark during the time period in question. Even when adjusted for age and sex, the ratio was still six to one.
Those from other MENA countries, such as Lebanon, Jordan, Uganda, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, and Egypt were also much higher than the Danish average.
On the other end of the spectrum, migrants from a number of European nations, as well as the Philippines, Indonesia, China, India, and Argentina, had a conviction rate lower than the Danish average. At the very bottom of the list were Japanese migrants, who were not convicted of a single violent crime in any of the 11 years.
In 2021, of the 5,921 violent crime convictions in the country, 71 percent involved suspects of Danish origin, while the remaining 29 percent were immigrants or their descendants. The latter group only made up 14 percent of the population at the time, resulting in an overall conviction rate 2.5 times higher than native Danes.
Within the immigrant cohort, however, those from western nations made up just 5 percent of the population and accounted for 3.8 percent of the convictions.
