{
  "id": "religion-crime-categories",
  "slug": "religion-crime",
  "topic": "Crime & evidence",
  "tag": "Religion & crime data",
  "revision": "draft-3",
  "locale": "en",
  "assessment": "Measurement finding · research draft",
  "title": "Nationality is not religion. Crime data must distinguish them.",
  "signLines": [
    "Nationality",
    "is not religion.",
    "Crime data must",
    "distinguish them."
  ],
  "question": "Do crime statistics establish sweeping claims about Muslims?",
  "summary": "Nationality and religion are different things. Crime records often describe citizenship or where people’s families came from, not their faith. Those records cannot establish that Islam causes violence.",
  "scope": "The examples here come from Sweden, England and Wales, Germany and the US. They do not give one crime rate for Muslims across Europe.",
  "geographicScope": {
    "kind": "multinational",
    "countryCodes": [
      "SE",
      "GB",
      "DE",
      "US"
    ],
    "jurisdictionCodes": [
      "SE",
      "GB-ENG",
      "GB-WLS",
      "DE",
      "US"
    ],
    "note": "Country-specific measurement examples; no combined cross-national religion-rate estimate."
  },
  "evidence": [
    {
      "heading": "What a Swedish comparison found",
      "text": "Swedish records for 2015–2018 compared groups by whether they or their parents were born abroad. Differences in recorded suspicion of crime became smaller when researchers allowed for age, sex and economic circumstances, though some differences remained. The records described family background, not religion. A remaining gap does not tell us its cause.",
      "sources": [
        1
      ],
      "sourceIds": [
        "bra-2021"
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "What the UK child-abuse inquiry could establish",
      "text": "The 2025 Casey review found national ethnicity records too incomplete for a reliable national conclusion. In some local child-exploitation investigations, people recorded as Asian were overrepresented. That is an ethnicity finding in those cases, not a national crime rate for Muslims. Abuse and failures to protect victims need to be acknowledged while avoiding blame of a whole faith.",
      "sources": [
        2
      ],
      "sourceIds": [
        "casey-2025"
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "Citizenship is not faith",
      "text": "German crime statistics count suspects and record citizenship. They do not tell us a suspect’s religion. A group’s share of suspects also needs to be compared with its share of the population before treating it as a rate. US FBI crime records include age, sex, race and ethnicity, but not an offender’s faith; religion-related hate-crime labels describe the target or motive.",
      "sources": [
        3,
        4
      ],
      "sourceIds": [
        "pks-2025",
        "nibrs-2025"
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "Prison records answer another question",
      "text": "England and Wales do record prisoners’ self-reported religion. But the number in prison depends on detention and sentence length, as well as crime. It is not a measure of every offense or a rape rate. A change in how religion was recorded in June 2025 also makes comparisons across that date harder.",
      "sources": [
        5
      ],
      "sourceIds": [
        "hmpps-2024"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "takeaway": "Check what the records actually measure before drawing a conclusion about religion.",
  "limits": [
    "Suspects, people convicted and people in prison are different counts.",
    "Age and economic circumstances explain some differences, not necessarily all of them.",
    "An offender’s actions do not make other people of the same background guilty."
  ],
  "contextTitle": "What does a remaining difference mean?",
  "contextIntro": "Allowing for known differences between groups does not reveal every cause of a gap.",
  "detail": "A statistical comparison cannot assign an unexplained difference to a religion that was not measured. Countries also use different crime definitions and recording practices. Names, ethnicity, citizenship and family origin cannot be substituted for a person’s faith.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "bra-2021",
      "revision": "research-2026-10-06",
      "title": "Registered offending among native/foreign-background residents",
      "publisher": "Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, 2021:9",
      "url": "https://bra.se/download/18.45e4b8e192705389a34c2b/1729515966490/2021_9_Registered_offending_among_persons.pdf",
      "type": "Official register analysis",
      "access": "English PDF text inspected, pp. 5–7",
      "limit": "Suspected offenses 2015–2018; background not religion; descriptive standardized ratios.",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-10-06",
      "locale": "en",
      "geographicCoverage": {
        "kind": "undetermined",
        "countryCodes": [],
        "jurisdictionCodes": [],
        "note": "Source-specific coverage is described in access/limits; final applicability review pending."
      },
      "readerTitle": "Swedish crime records and family migration background",
      "readerAccess": "We could read the English report and checked the relevant comparisons.",
      "readerLimit": "It counts recorded suspicion of crime in 2015–2018, not proven guilt. Groups are defined by migration background, not religion.",
      "supports": [
        "What a Swedish comparison found"
      ],
      "limitationsInternal": [
        "English PDF text inspected, pp. 5–7",
        "Suspected offenses 2015–2018; background not religion; descriptive standardized ratios."
      ],
      "limitationsPublic": [
        "It counts recorded suspicion of crime in 2015–2018, not proven guilt. Groups are defined by migration background, not religion."
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "casey-2025",
      "revision": "research-2026-10-06",
      "title": "National audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse",
      "publisher": "UK government, June 2025",
      "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-audit-on-group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse/national-audit-on-group-based-child-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse-accessible",
      "type": "Commissioned national/local audit",
      "access": "Relevant sections 4.3–4.5 inspected",
      "limit": "Incomplete national ethnicity data; local operations not national religious rates.",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-10-06",
      "locale": "en",
      "geographicCoverage": {
        "kind": "undetermined",
        "countryCodes": [],
        "jurisdictionCodes": [],
        "note": "Source-specific coverage is described in access/limits; final applicability review pending."
      },
      "readerTitle": "The UK review of group-based child sexual exploitation",
      "readerAccess": "We checked the relevant sections of the report.",
      "readerLimit": "National ethnicity records are incomplete. Particular local investigations cannot establish a national rate for a religious group.",
      "supports": [
        "What the UK child-abuse inquiry could establish"
      ],
      "limitationsInternal": [
        "Relevant sections 4.3–4.5 inspected",
        "Incomplete national ethnicity data; local operations not national religious rates."
      ],
      "limitationsPublic": [
        "National ethnicity records are incomplete. Particular local investigations cannot establish a national rate for a religious group."
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "pks-2025",
      "revision": "research-2026-10-06",
      "title": "Police crime statistics 2025",
      "publisher": "German federal government, April 2026",
      "url": "https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/polizeiliche-kriminalstatistik-2025-2422020",
      "type": "Official statistical summary",
      "access": "Current release inspected",
      "limit": "Citizenship and suspects; detailed offense/denominator review needed before charting.",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-10-06",
      "locale": "en",
      "geographicCoverage": {
        "kind": "undetermined",
        "countryCodes": [],
        "jurisdictionCodes": [],
        "note": "Source-specific coverage is described in access/limits; final applicability review pending."
      },
      "readerTitle": "What German crime statistics record",
      "readerAccess": "We could read the current statistical summary.",
      "readerLimit": "It records citizenship and suspects, not faith. More detail about offenses and population sizes is needed before making a rate comparison.",
      "supports": [
        "Citizenship is not faith"
      ],
      "limitationsInternal": [
        "Current release inspected",
        "Citizenship and suspects; detailed offense/denominator review needed before charting."
      ],
      "limitationsPublic": [
        "It records citizenship and suspects, not faith. More detail about offenses and population sizes is needed before making a rate comparison."
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "nibrs-2025",
      "revision": "research-2026-10-06",
      "title": "NIBRS technical specification 2025.0",
      "publisher": "FBI",
      "url": "https://le.fbi.gov/file-repository/2025-0-nibrs-technical-specification-062625.pdf",
      "type": "Administrative data specification",
      "access": "Offender segment, elements 36–39A inspected",
      "limit": "Religious-bias fields do not encode an offender's faith.",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-10-06",
      "locale": "en",
      "geographicCoverage": {
        "kind": "undetermined",
        "countryCodes": [],
        "jurisdictionCodes": [],
        "note": "Source-specific coverage is described in access/limits; final applicability review pending."
      },
      "readerTitle": "Which personal details US crime records include",
      "readerAccess": "We checked the instructions for recording offender information.",
      "readerLimit": "A religion-related hate-crime code describes a target or motive; it does not record the offender’s religion.",
      "supports": [
        "Citizenship is not faith"
      ],
      "limitationsInternal": [
        "Offender segment, elements 36–39A inspected",
        "Religious-bias fields do not encode an offender's faith."
      ],
      "limitationsPublic": [
        "A religion-related hate-crime code describes a target or motive; it does not record the offender’s religion."
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "hmpps-2024",
      "revision": "research-2026-10-06",
      "title": "Offender Equalities Report 2023/24",
      "publisher": "HMPPS",
      "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-offender-equalities-annual-report-2023-to-2024/hmpps-offender-equalities-report-202324",
      "type": "Prison-population statistics",
      "access": "Report and subsequent coding notice assessed in dossier",
      "limit": "Self-identified prison religion is not incidence; June 2025 category break needs explicit handling.",
      "retrievedAt": "2026-10-06",
      "locale": "en",
      "geographicCoverage": {
        "kind": "undetermined",
        "countryCodes": [],
        "jurisdictionCodes": [],
        "note": "Source-specific coverage is described in access/limits; final applicability review pending."
      },
      "readerTitle": "Religion recorded among prisoners in England and Wales",
      "readerAccess": "We checked the report and a later notice about changed categories.",
      "readerLimit": "A prison population on one date is not a measure of every crime. Recording changed in June 2025, making before-and-after comparisons harder.",
      "supports": [
        "Prison records answer another question"
      ],
      "limitationsInternal": [
        "Report and subsequent coding notice assessed in dossier",
        "Self-identified prison religion is not incidence; June 2025 category break needs explicit handling."
      ],
      "limitationsPublic": [
        "A prison population on one date is not a measure of every crime. Recording changed in June 2025, making before-and-after comparisons harder."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "dossier": "antimuslim_crime_evidence.md",
  "reviewNeeds": "Editorial/statistical review and source verification pending. Country-specific findings are not a causal religious comparison or a complete all-Europe review.",
  "updateTriggers": "New comparable datasets, inquiry findings, category/denominator changes, revised studies or corrected incidents.",
  "related": [
    {
      "slug": "immigration",
      "label": "US immigration and crime: separate community and status evidence"
    }
  ],
  "shareContext": "Citizenship and family origin do not tell us a person’s faith. Suspects, convictions and prison counts measure different things.",
  "socialContext": "Citizenship does not tell us a person’s faith. Suspect, conviction and prison counts measure different things.",
  "copyReviewedAt": "2026-10-07",
  "readerCopyEdition": "plain-language-1",
  "citationDesignEdition": "publication-first-1",
  "assetDesignEdition": "space-first-1",
  "headline": {
    "text": "Nationality is not religion. Crime data must distinguish them.",
    "revision": 1,
    "status": "draft",
    "sourceMessageId": null,
    "approvedAt": null,
    "authority": "Existing owner decisions recorded in AGENTS/D39; unavailable message IDs are not invented."
  },
  "language": "en",
  "jurisdiction": {
    "kind": "multinational",
    "countryCodes": [
      "SE",
      "GB",
      "DE",
      "US"
    ],
    "jurisdictionCodes": [
      "SE",
      "GB-ENG",
      "GB-WLS",
      "DE",
      "US"
    ],
    "note": "Country-specific measurement examples; no combined cross-national religion-rate estimate."
  },
  "claimScope": "The examples here come from Sweden, England and Wales, Germany and the US. They do not give one crime rate for Muslims across Europe.",
  "research": {
    "dossierRef": "docs/research/antimuslim_crime_evidence.md",
    "reviewedAt": "2026-10-06",
    "reviewDue": "New comparable datasets, inquiry findings, category/denominator changes, revised studies or corrected incidents.",
    "contraryEvidenceConsidered": [],
    "status": "research draft; editorial/context review separate"
  },
  "status": "researched draft preview",
  "realWorldClaimReviewed": false,
  "clinicalEditorialApproved": false
}