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Analysis
Does Suella Braverman have evidence to link boat
arrivals to crime?
Rajeev Syal
Home
affairs editor
Home secretary defends her latest incendiary claims on
immigration by citing conversations with unnamed police chiefs
UK politics
live – latest updates
Wed 26 Apr
2023 18.47 BST
Is there
evidence for Suella Braverman’s claims of “heightened criminality” among boat
arrivals?
In a
morning round of interviews, the home secretary once again created news by
making the kind of claim about migrants that was once seen as racially
incendiary, but is fast becoming the norm among Home Office ministers.
Asked
whether she agreed with immigration minister Robert Jenrick’s view that
uncontrolled inflows “threaten to cannibalise the compassion of the British
public”, Braverman said: “I think that the people coming here illegally do
possess values which are at odds with our country.
“We are
seeing heightened levels of criminality when related to the people who’ve come
on boats related to drug dealing, exploitation, prostitution.
“There are
real challenges which go beyond the migration issue of people coming here
illegally. We need to ensure that we bring an end to the boat crossings.”
The
comments have provoked warnings from anti-racist organisations such as Hope Not
Hate that they will be seized upon by the far right and could result in further
community tensions around migrant hotels.
Asked later
to explain on what evidence she is basing her claims of “heightened levels of
criminality”, she said she had spoken to several senior police officers. “We’ve
got people here who are coming here illegally. That in itself is criminal
behaviour and that’s why we’re setting up our new framework on illegal
migration,” she said.
“But in my
conversations with many police chiefs around the country, they are now
reporting back to me that [about] drug gangs. They’re dealing with people who
came on small boats. Not in all cases, but it is becoming a notable feature of
everyday crime-fighting on the streets of England and Wales.
“We cannot
ignore the fact that many people are coming here illegally, and they’re getting
very quickly involved in the drug trade and other exploitation in criminality
and prostitution.”
Asked if it
was right to base such a controversial claim on anecdotal evidence, Braverman
said: “They are police chiefs, experts in their field and authoritative sources
of information as to what they are seeing in their force areas.”
Her office
declined to say which senior officers she had spoken to, but did say that there
were “multiple” sources.
The Oxford
Migration Observatory, the academic institute that gathers data on the movement
of people, said it was not aware of any recent academic or official statistics
examining criminality among refugees who had recently arrived in the UK.
“There is
little evidence that migrants are any more or less likely to commit crimes than
any other members of the population,” a spokesperson said.
The
National Police Chiefs’ Council said it was not in a position to say who
Braverman had spoken to.
But police
sources said there is a general perception that those who arrive in small boats
are vulnerable and can be victims or become victims of exploitation and then
become involved in crimes.
There will
undoubtedly be those who go on to commit crime and there can be a variety of
reasons why this may occur such as exploitation, debt bondage or proximity to
organised crime gangs, the source said.
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