The evidence suggests it is less simple than Mr Farage might imply. Researchers at the London School of Economics and University College London have studied the effect on crime of two large migration flows to Britain. One was the arrival of large numbers of economic migrants from eastern European after the enlargement of the EU in 2004.
Rates of violent crime in the parts of England and Wales where they settled remained stable and property crime fell. Franco Fasani, one of the researchers, argues that such immigrants are eager to work, have social networks of some kind and might well have studied English. Economic migrants are likely to arrange jobs before they arrive. Few are unemployed. Studies in America have shown similar trends: the crime rate among first-generation immigrants is lower than the overall crime rate, even for those in their teens and early 20s, the most common age for criminal activity.
The second group were
asylum seekers who fled to Britain in large numbers in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Again, their presence had no impact on the prevalence of violent crime. Property crime did, however, rise slightly.