Immigration and Crime in Spain, 1999-2006

Crime in Spain is not high, by European standards, but together with immigration, crime rates have increased significantly in the last decade. The goals of this paper are (i) to evaluate empirically the extent to which there is either a negative or a positive correlation between crime and immigration and, (ii) to provide a preliminary assessment of the extent to which a causal mechanism can be identified. We find that both immigrants and natives have contributed to the increase in the crime rate. However, the contribution of immigrants seems to be relatively higher. This result is partly explained by the fact that immigration has contributed to the main increase of the collective of males aged 20 to 50, which are responsible for most offences, and by differences in socioeconomic opportunities between migrants and natives. After controlling for such differences, being an immigrant still plays a significant role, but its estimated effect is diminished and the gradual decrease in the crime rates for each nationality appears to indicate a lower propensity to commit criminal offences among the newly-arrived immigrants. We find significant differences in the behavior of immigrants towards crime by their nationality of origin. The crime gap between immigrants and natives is moderate, and can be largely explained by a higher propensity of immigrants to commit minor offences. This type of crimes, although being the less serious, generates a strong perception of insecurity among native population, but its number has decreased in recent years.