Migrants are disproportionately young men aged 18-35 — the demographic that commits the most crime in every country in the world, regardless of nationality.

When you control for age and sex — comparing like with like — non-citizens are not more likely to be incarcerated than British nationals. The Migration Observatory confirms that once age is accounted for, the difference disappears or reverses.

The CMC uses "arrests" not convictions — arrests include people who are subsequently found innocent. Foreign nationals may face higher arrest rates due to targeted policing, not higher offending.

The official figures tell a different story: Non-UK citizens made up 13.1% of convictions in 2024 and 12.1% of the prison population — virtually identical to their 13.5% share of the adult population . Source: Migration Observatory, Oxford University.

There are no reliable official UK statistics on crime by immigration status. The ONS confirmed in a 2025 FOI response that it does not hold crime data broken down by immigration or asylum status.

The CMC fills this gap with selectively chosen FOI requests to police forces — not a representative national dataset. Cherry-picked forces and cherry-picked crime types produce whatever result is desired.

If migrants drove crime, rising immigration should correlate with rising crime. It doesn't.

Academic studies for England and Wales find that overall property crime fell as the foreign-born share of the population rose. Researchers conclude there is no evidence that rising migration caused crime to increase. The opposite trend is observed.