Rarely we find the arguments in favor of the fact that the more knowledge, the worse. But there are exceptions, and one such — and not quite unexpectedly — we see in Sweden.
On the Swedish channel SVT2, which corresponds to the Danish DR2, January 15, in a research Agenda can be seen quite a big story about why Sweden does not light the problem of crime among migrants.
This has not been done since 2005, when the Council for crime prevention Brå has published a report showing that citizens of foreign origin are twice as likely to fall under suspicion in the actions of a criminal nature than native Swedes. For migrants from Africa, the statistics turned out to be five times higher than for native-born Swedes, according to a story Agenda. In the program, including an interview with one politician from a bourgeois-liberal Party of the Center, which strongly recommends to prepare an updated report that since 2005, it has already become an unconditional part of Swedish society.
From Danish point of view in this recommendation, there is nothing strange. Bureau of statistics Denmark publishes annually information about crime (and many other aspects related to migrants and children of migrants) in the report “Migrants in Denmark”. In addition, you can find these figures in the Bank of statistics, as well as other data about the population and its behavior in relation to parameters such as gender, age, origin, residence, income, and so on.
But in Sweden the question of whether people want to know about crime among migrants, in contrast, no clear answer.
Here you need to understand that the question of the origin of the perpetrators, according to representatives of the Swedish authorities and the government, the information simply for anybody not relevant. Data from 2005 and so quite, say representatives of various authorities and experts in the story.
Although the employee Brå says that they are constantly the cause of crime among migrants, it is, however, not consider it a reason to update the report.
Similarly, the social democratic Minister of justice Morgan Johansson reported that:
“Given the earlier studies, I do not think that one report was crime and the origin of individuals, will be knowledge that will improve the Swedish society, and therefore I do not intend to give Brå a job”.
The story also includes interviews with the CSI, which works with the rehabilitation of criminals. She says she can’t imagine where these data could be applied, and that the crime “nothing” has nothing to do with ethnicity but everything to do with social circumstances, the reason for which some people want to conduct such statistics is the desire to denigrate or eliminate certain groups of people.
The story in the Agenda ended with a hot discussion between Professor of criminology Jerzy Sarnecki (Jerzy Sarnecki) and MP from the Swedish Democrats Karlsson Mattias (Mattias Karlsson). Before the interview, the presenter said that the social democratic Minister of justice, as well as representatives of the Green Party (the second party of the government) and the Left party have also been invited to participate in the debate. They, however, refused.
In the story the Professor makes it clear that he did not think that important to know “what” migrants commit the majority of crimes, as the 2005 report and so testifies, but one may wonder “why” it is.
On the question of whether he is not interested in the facts, the Professor replied that it is not and facts of interest. But not such facts as the extent of crime among migrants, which has not been updated since 2005. No. Instead, the Professor announced that he was “interested in the facts, much more difficult.”
For a country where the government and media are constantly exposed to charges and, unfortunately, often not without reason — the silence and the darkening of the problems associated with record high migration, this story seems almost surreal, stupid and counterproductive.
Of course, any data can be used for political purposes. But knowledge is an additional opportunity to both fully understand the situation and to formulate possible solutions. If you don’t know what’s happening, is incredibly difficult to answer the question “why” it happens.
At the moment, for example, Swedes are not aware that the fact that the number of women experiencing sexual assault has increased almost three times from 2011 to the present, has something to do with migration. And in the absence of real knowledge, which neither the Minister nor the sacrament criminologists, apparently, does not want to give people, speculation on this topic is developing quite unpredictable — and social networks, followed by many alternative media, which is in Sweden.
It would be comical if it were not so serious that a large part of Sweden’s official still believes that if you just hide from people the facts, and the subject for discussion will not. This is not so. Instead, the discussions become even more violent and unskilled.
As a PostScript illustrating how painful for the Swedish media to address this topic, we should mention that the Agenda had to provide your story on the Internet explanatory text, where the head of the program is explained and justified because the program dared to raise the issue of the missing statistics on crime among immigrants.
