Was there a spike in sexual crimes and harassment after the 2015 European migration crisis?

According to official crime statistics, there have been an astounding 42 936 documented rapes in Sweden over the past five years. Give that some time to sink in. The number of rapes that have occurred in Sweden over the past five years could actually shock you. Sweden prides itself on being a feminist nation that supports women’s rights, but this catastrophe that primarily affects women is going unnoticed. How come?

Now, you may have heard from leftists who claim that because Sweden changed its definition of rape, the situation there isn’t as severe as the numbers suggest compared to other nations. They claim that compared to other nations, Sweden has a harsher definition of rape.

But because of this general reluctance, the conversation on this subject has frequently been limited to two extremes. On the one hand, the populist Right has ruled it. For instance, German supporters of Alternative für Deutschland rioted and demanded mass deportations in response to the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults that occurred in Cologne in 2015–16. On the other end of the political spectrum, many liberals and progressives in Europe have adopted the three wise monkeys’ motto: “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

But why should these two extremes be the only options for discussion? The ability to do a robust empirical study on complicated phenomena, especially those that are contentious and politically sensitive, is unquestionably necessary for excellent social science. Only then can they be properly understood and specific public policy measures can be created.

According to information from Swedish national TV, 58% of the males who were found guilty of rape and attempted rape in Sweden over the course of the previous five years were foreign-born.

Swedish public broadcaster SVT claimed that in order to provide a complete picture, it has included all court convictions. But there is no racial breakdown for the thousands of additional rapes that were reported in Sweden.
The number of recorded rapes decreased by 12% in 2015, the year Sweden received the most asylum applications. Around 160,000 people came there at the height of the migration crisis, more than in any other EU nation per person.

Concerns about Sweden’s capacity to integrate immigrants were also raised by the sharp increase in migration. Restrictions were rapidly put in place by the center-left Social Democrat-led government, and the number of arrivals sharply decreased.

According to the SVT show, more than 80% of perpetrators were foreign-born in cases when the victim did not know the assailant.

According to a former police officer who was born in Afghanistan, some young Afghan immigrants to Sweden in recent years held beliefs that were very different from Sweden’s conception of sexual equality.

Interestingly, in 2018, sex without permission replaced rape as the legal definition of crime in Sweden. Prosecutors do not need to provide evidence of the use or threat of violence or coercion, unlike in many other nations.

According to the National Council on Crime Prevention (Bra), the move had a bigger impact than anticipated as evidenced by the increase in convictions, which went from 190 in 2017 to 333 in 2019.

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