Migration, not migrants, is the problem: Delinquency among migrants and non-migrants in Switzerland and ex-Yugoslavia
| Author | Anastasiia Lukash,Martin Killias |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370819828329 |
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2019
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2020, Vol. 17(6) 896 –917
Migration, not migrants, is
© The Author(s) 2019
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the problem: Delinquency
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819828329
DOI: 10.1177/1477370819828329
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among migrants and
non-migrants in Switzerland
and ex-Yugoslavia
Martin Killias
University of St Gallen, Switzerland
Anastasiia Lukash
University of St Gallen, Switzerland
Abstract
The nexus between migration and crime has been studied over nearly a century across many
countries from all continents. Research has concentrated on comparisons of migrants (or their
offspring) with natives. Comparisons between migrants and comparable samples from their
countries of origin have not been undertaken so far, however, because data were usually limited
to the host country. The International Self-Reported Delinquency Study (ISRD-3, Enzmann et al.,
2018) allows this gap to be overcome. In Switzerland, with its large immigrant minority – one
student in two has roots in a foreign country – migrants of different backgrounds can be compared
with native Swiss and with students who attend schools in ex-Yugoslavia where many migrants
are from. We compare data on self-reported offences and victimization in the family collected
through interviews with some 4000 juveniles in Switzerland and more than 6000 students of the
same age in four countries of ex-Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia).
Native-born youths in Switzerland report fewer offences than their immigrant peers, including
those from ex-Yugoslavia. Although differences between students from ex-Yugoslavia and other
foreign countries are relatively small, juveniles in ex-Yugoslavia report far lower offending rates
than immigrants of the same age in Switzerland. Their rates are similar or lower than among
native Swiss students. Further, rates of physical punishment and maltreatment are higher among
immigrants than among non-migrants in Switzerland and in ex-Yugoslavia. We conclude that
cultural background is unrelated to delinquency and parental punishment, but the experience
Corresponding author:
Martin Killias, Professor Emeritus, Universities of Zurich, Lausanne and St. Gallen, Rathausgaessli 27,
Lenzburg, CH-5600, Switzerland.
Email: martin.killias@unisg.ch
Killias and Lukash
897
of migrating goes along with violence within the family and self-reported offending. Differences
exist between various family constellations, students born or with at least one parent born in
Switzerland committing fewer offences and experiencing less parental violence.
Keywords
Juvenile delinquency, migration, migrants, parental punishment, self-report delinquency
Introduction
In traditional immigration countries, the nexus between migration and crime had started
to interest criminologists as early as the beginning of the 20th century, both in the United
States (Sellin, 1938) and in Latin America (Aebi, 2005). In Europe, aside from some
isolated early examples (such as Exner, 1939), interest in this issue started only once
migration from Southern to Northern Europe reached major proportions during the 1960s
and 1970s (Tonry, 1997). Despite the differences in migration policies, the origin of
migrants and the reasons for migration, the experiences and debates were similar across
nations (Tonry, 1997). To the extent that authors observed higher offending rates among
migrants than natives, explanations centred on cultural factors (Sellin, 1938), social dis-
advantages (Ross, 1937) or concentration of migrants in problematic neighbourhoods
(Shaw and McKay, 1942). Interestingly, however, most studies from Europe found that,
even according to official records, crime among migrants was lower or at least not higher
than among native males of similar age, a pattern that changed more or less across the
continent after 1975 (Killias, 1997). The change around 1975 in Europe suggests that
migration may not go along with higher crime rates in all circumstances. Probably, much
depends on who migrates from what background to which countries and with what plans
and perspectives of integration. The unusually high offending rates among migrants from
the UK in Argentina at the beginning of the 20th century (Aebi, 2005) further illustrate
that migrants may represent a more or less favourably selected group from their home
countries, depending on the historical context of migration.
Within Europe, Switzerland has, alongside tiny states such as Luxembourg or
Liechtenstein, an unusually high proportion of residents born abroad. According to offi-
cial records, Switzerland’s foreign population in 2016 reached 25 percent of the perma-
nent resident population (FSO, 2018: 7). Citizens of four former Yugoslavian countries
(Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo) make up 14 percent of
Switzerland’s total population (FSO, 2018: 7), Kosovars being the largest group among
them (BFS, 2017; FSO, 2018: 7; Sharani et al., 2010). Together, nationals from these
four countries constitute the largest group of foreign residents. These four ex-Yugosla-
vian countries are also included in ISRD-3. Owing to ongoing high rates of naturaliza-
tion, the ‘real’ share of residents with an immigrant background is likely to be close to 40
percent, however, particularly among younger age groups. In the sample interviewed for
the ISRD-3 in 2013 (and used in the present study), 49 percent reported having immi-
grated or having at least one parent born abroad. This high rate of immigration has led to
some social tensions, and immigration is among the most controversial political issues
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European Journal of Criminology 17(6)
(Linder, 2011). National police statistics show that one criminal code offence in two is
committed by a foreign national, of whom 41 percent are non-residents (Polizeiliche
Kriminalstatistik, 2018: 27).
The situation of juveniles growing up in a foreign country received attention first in
the USA, when, in her Yale doctoral dissertation under the direction of Thorsten Sellin
(and largely abstracted in Sellin, 1938), Dorothy Krall coined the term ‘second genera-
tion’. In contrast to the first generation, the so-called second generation is seen as more
prone to offending owing to confusing cultural norms, that is, a sort of a conflict
between their parents’ imported cultural norms and those prevailing in the host society
(Sellin, 1938). So far, the question has remained undecided whether children of
migrants are (if at all) more delinquent because (1) they share more pro-violent
(‘macho’) attitudes learned from their parents’ cultural norms, or because (2) difficul-
ties resulting from migration itself (and all it entails for children growing up abroad)
are the causes of their (eventually) higher criminal involvement. With data from ISRD-
2, a first test allowed us to see, a few years ago, that juveniles living in Bosnia-
Herzegovina tend to offend less than students in Switzerland (Killias et al., 2010). The
present study allows, for the first time to our knowledge, a comparison of young
migrants in the host country – originating both from ex-Yugoslavia or from other parts
of the world – with native (Swiss) juveniles, as well as with young people growing up
in their parents’ country of origin. Thanks to reasonably large samples in all the coun-
tries involved, and owing to the unusually high proportion of foreign residents in
Switzerland, both from former Yugoslavia and from other parts of the world, statisti-
cally meaningful analyses are possible comparing all these sub-samples. In sum,
Switzerland offers – within Europe – a particularly useful field of analysis of the ques-
tion of whether migrant youths are (if at all) more delinquent because of cultural fac-
tors related to their origin, or whether circumstances due to their living conditions in
the host country are the key factors.
In the ISRD of 2006, as well as in other surveys among Swiss students, juveniles of
foreign origin were found to admit to more offences than their peers without an immi-
gration background (for example, Killias, 1997, 2009; Killias et al., 2010; Vazsonyi
and Killias, 2001; Vazsonyi et al., 2018). Most authors explained this phenomenon
through problems of integration within West European societies, or by cultural or reli-
gious traditions (for example, Bui and Farrington, 2016; Helbling, 2008; Killias et al.,
2010; Kohler, 2012).
In this article, we will first describe the design of the study.1 Next, we will correlate
offending rates with commonly used independent variables of social integration to assess
whether, across sub-samples (that is, native and immigrant juveniles in Switzerland, and
young people in ex-Yugoslavia), (1) delinquency rates differ, (2) the explanatory power
of these variables differs, and (3) migration relates similarly to offending, physical pun-
ishment and maltreatment by parents.
Beyond descriptive statistics and bivariate analyses, we will test, through binary
logistic regressions, whether the association between violent, property and minor
offences, on the one hand, and classic independent variables, including gender and the
experience of migration, parental control, having delinquent friends, religious affiliation,
and weak self-control, on the other hand, holds across sub-samples.
...
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