Immigration, internal migration and crime in South Africa: A multi‐level model analysis

Abstract

A review of South African literature on crime confirms the lack of a study that considers the impact of migration on the crime rate in the country. The high levels of crime in South Africa aside, additional motivation behind the study has been the increasing rhetoric in media and by politicians insinuating the prominent role of foreign immigrants in the high crime levels of the country. While this is the first attempt to study this relationship in the South African context, it also stands apart from existing studies undertaken in the developed countries by accounting for both internal migrants as well as foreign immigrants. Further, the study claims the use of multi‐level regression estimations as an improvement from the existing studies on the issue by accounting for variance clustering across different spatial levels. In all the estimated models, internal migrant ratio came out as being positively and significantly related to crime rates across five different crime categories, with the sole exception of sexual crime rate. There was no evidence of foreign immigrant ratio impacting on crime rate in any of the crimes analysed except crime relating to property. Further, income inequality and sex ratio figure as determining factors across most types of crime in South Africa.

A Spatial Analysis of Property Crime Rates in South Africa

“…Another limitation of linear mixed modelling is its inability to consider interrelationship between locations. It is from this methodological perspective that the present study differs from that of Kollamparambil (2019).…”

“…(2012), MacDonald et al . (2013), Solivetti (2018) and Kollamparambil (2019) have focused on the relationship between non‐citizens (immigrants) and crime. The perception that the concentration of non‐citizens is associated with an increased level of crime in South Africa has been part of public debate for quite a long time.…”

“…It is also argued that the unfortunate xenophobic attacks experienced in 2008 and 2015 are a manifestation of South African citizens believing that they compete with immigrants for scarce jobs, and that the immigrants are also responsible for the increased levels of crime. Even though crime and immigration are among the topical issues in South Africa, quantitative studies on their relationship are non‐existent, except for the work by Kollamparambil (2019). Hence, “Non‐citizen” is included as a determinant of crime in the present study.…”

“…Kollamparambil (2019) uses linear mixed modelling to study the relationships between internal migrants, foreign immigrants and crime rates in South Africa by considering all local and metropolitan municipalities as geographical units of analysis. To some extent, Kollamparambil’s (2019) work can be assimilated with others that adopt a spatial approach as mode of enquiry.…”

“…Kollamparambil (2019) uses linear mixed modelling to study the relationships between internal migrants, foreign immigrants and crime rates in South Africa by considering all local and metropolitan municipalities as geographical units of analysis. To some extent, Kollamparambil’s (2019) work can be assimilated with others that adopt a spatial approach as mode of enquiry. The reason for this is that, by using linear mixed modelling, it is assumed that the crime rate of municipalities belonging to a province are all influenced by the same unobserved province‐level factors.…”