Immigration and Crime in Switzerland - Evidence from Micro Data

• In Event: The Micro-politics of Immigrant Integration

Abstract

The paper analyses the impact of immigration on criminal activity as a proximate measure of social cohesion. We construct a novel neighborhood data between 2000 and 2012 for Switzerland’s most diverse canton, Geneva in the context of current political shifts challenging the expansion of immigration after Switzerland's official entry into the Schengen along with refugee inflows from Asia and Africa. The results employing an instrument variable approach exploiting the supply push factors driving immigration in Europe show a strong negative effect of immigration on total criminal activity including broad categories such as property, sexual offences and violent crimes. This negative effect is consistent once we disaggregate criminal activities into specific categories. Crimes related to drugs, traffic violations, robberies, violations of civilian laws and crimes against individual freedoms and privacy seem to witness the largest decline from an increase in immigration. Simulations suggests that once we randomize the neighborhood location of immigrants by their nationality, any increase in migrant stock has an insignificant effect on all crime categories. We argue that any increase in criminal activity after border controls were lifted in Geneva with the Schengen entry is not correlated with any associated increase in immigration. Rather conditional on existing migrant networks, an increase in immigration significantly reduces criminal activity on average in support of the `immigrant revitalisation' hypothesis. Utilizing both survey questionnaires and data on media reports from 2003 to 2015 we suggest that contrary to the causal relationship between immigration and crime rates, anti-immigrant attitudes is more likely driving the public opinion on safety and security concerns from immigration across Switzerland.

Authors

• Rohan Ravindra Gudibande, Princeton University

• Karsten Donnay, University of Konstanz

• Ravi Bhavnani, The Graduate Institute, Geneva