Researchers are being prosecuted for a study that showed that most rapes are committed by immigrants
Professor Kristina Sundquist, Lund University, Sweden and two of her colleagues are facing prosecution by the Board of Appeal for Ethical Review, a body under the Ministry of Education. The reason for the investigation initiated by the body is the research paper submitted by Sundquist which shows that most rapes that took place in Sweden were committed by immigrants.
The body would not investigate whether Sundquist and the co-author of the paper, Professor Ardavan Khoshnood, were given an “ethical license” to handle “sensitive information” about the ethnicity of the criminals accused of raping the country. Interestingly, the purpose of the study was not to target any group or community but to find out common denominators such as health issues, social and employment status among the perpetrators. The results were, according to Khoshnood, surprising for the team as well.
Reports indicate that the ethics authority intends to issue some form of punishment to the authors of the newspaper. In a statement, the agency said: “I see nowhere that ethical permission is sought to test the hypothesis if immigrants are overrepresented in statistics on convicted rapists. The researchers were also criticized for inadequate evaluation because they could not indicate how their research would” reduce exclusion and improve integration. “
It is noteworthy that Sundquist is the most quoted professor at the university when it comes to social research. Unfortunately, she would have to face an investigation for having published an alleged “unauthorized research report”. She may be prosecuted for the conclusion of her study which shows that the majority of the rapes were committed by immigrants to the country.
Details of the study done by Prof Sundquist
The essay entitled “Swedish rape criminals – a latent class analysis” [PDF] was published in February 2021. The conclusion of the study was based on 3,039 convicts between the period 2000 and 2015. It is noteworthy that the data do not include the influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa from 2015 to today which increased exponentially due to the unrest in these regions.
The study was conducted because, according to the newspaper’s introduction, there was an increase in the number of sexual crimes, including rapes in the country. “The knowledge of who the perpetrators of these crimes are is therefore important for prevention,” it added.
According to the researchers involved in the study, the purpose of the study was not to specifically target the ethnic background but to see if they had anything in common among them, such as employment, social status, health issues and more. The ethnic profile of the culprits was among the evidence, but could not be ignored.
Sundquist mentioned in a statement that immigrant status was only a variable. She sa“Immigrants were just a variable, and it turned out to be a pretty remarkable discovery because there were a lot of immigrants and foreign-born people in this group.”
During the data analysis, the researchers found that of 3,039 perpetrators included in the study, 59.2 percent were immigrants. Of these, 47.7 percent were born outside Sweden. The researchers recommended further investigating the higher number of immigrants involved in sexual offenses and taking into account the contextual characteristics of these perpetrators during further studies.
The newspaper also pointed out that the majority of sexual crimes are not reported. The data from the Crime Prevention Council showed that around 23,200 sexual crimes were reported in 2019. Of these, 38 percent were rapes and aggravated rapes. The annual Swedish criminal investigation in 2019 estimated that 5.6 percent of the total population between the ages of 16 and 84 had fallen victim to sexual crimes.
The study further indicated that 9.4 percent of women and 1.4 percent of men have reported being victims of sexual crimes. It is noteworthy that between 2008 and 2018, cases of rape increased by 45.4 percent. According to available information, the number of perpetrators convicted of sexual crimes has been stable since 2008. Since 2009, however, the proportion of police cases passed has fallen to 31 percent in 2009. In 2016, only 11 percent of such cases were resolved.
Sundquist’s study noted that while 47.7 percent of offenders were born outside Sweden, 11.5 percent had at least one parent born abroad. 40.8 percent of the offenders were born in Sweden. Among those born in Sweden but their parents were born outside, 40.7 per cent had mothers born in western countries while 33.9 per cent had fathers born in western countries. 19.8 percent of the perpetrators had mothers from the Middle East / North Africa, while the same for fathers was 24 percent.
Of the offenders born outside Sweden, 34.5 percent were from the Middle East / North Africa and 19.1 percent from Africa. Several studies had been conducted previously and they were consistent with the current results. Although such studies were not common, no one had been threatened with prosecution before.
The scare tactic
Since the professors are prosecuted for only publishing the results based on the information available to Swedish authorities, it is unclear how hiding the information about the perpetrators’ social and ethnic background would improve the inclusion of immigrants. Interestingly, one of the authors of the study is himself an immigrant.