The UK justice system does not keep separate crime figures for asylum seekers. The statistics we have refer to migrants ie. people who were not born in this country, and these show that “the share of non-citizens among people convicted or incarcerated is lower when taking AGE into account. This is because non-citizens tend to be younger, and criminal offending takes place primarily among young men.This briefing provides the available evidence on migration and crime in the UK.” (See below: Migration Observatory).
Other key points from Migration Observatory research:
- Research on how migration affects crime rates in the UK is limited. Studies based on data from the 2000s and 2010s suggested that migration did not affect violent crime or property crime rates on average, but that a larger number of asylum seekers was associated with an increase in rates of property crime.
More…- Most offences never lead to a conviction, so actual rates of offending among different groups in the population are unknown. However, non-UK citizens made up 13.1% of people given cautions or convictions in 2024, and 12.1% of the prison population in June 2025. This was roughly similar to their share of the adult population. The share of non-citizens among people convicted or incarcerated is lower when taking age into account. This is because non-citizens tend to be younger, and criminal offending takes place primarily among young men.
More…- The most common non-UK nationalities of people in English and Welsh prisons at the end of 2025 were Albanian, Irish, and Polish. Incarceration and conviction rates vary by nationality but it is difficult to compare them accurately due to data gaps.
More…- The available data suggest that non-citizens were more likely to be convicted or incarcerated for drug offences and less likely for violent offences, compared to British citizens.
More…- Non-citizens are less likely to receive bail than citizens and are overrepresented in the population of people on remand awaiting trial. Around 25% of non-citizens in prisons had not yet been tried, compared to 11% of British citizens.
More…- The government does not publish data on the share of foreign national offenders (FNOs) who are deported. However, the number of foreign national offenders (FNOs) living in the community has increased over the past decade, suggesting that returns have not kept pace with prison releases.
More…- Between 2015 and 2022, an average of 420 non-citizen offenders each year successfully appealed against their return on human rights grounds. A further 840 per year appealed unsuccessfully.
More…- From 2016 to mid-2022, an estimated 11% of FNOs removed from the UK took up financial incentives to return, and 38% left under the ‘early release’ scheme, which allows deportees to leave prison before serving their mandatory sentence. Policies to transfer offenders to prisons in other countries to serve their sentence overseas are rarely used.
More…- Migrants were less likely to be victims of crime than the UK-born, although they were more likely to be victims of hate crimes.
More…- In 2024, consular staff at the Foreign Office provided assistance in around 4,600 new arrest and detention cases involving British citizens in other countries.
More…Are non-citizens more or less likely to be convicted of crimes?
Since most crimes never result in a conviction, the true offence rate among different groups in the population is unknown. Many factors affect whether an offender is convicted, including the type of crime, whether the crime is witnessed and reported, and how people with different backgrounds and ethnicities are treated in the criminal justice system. Separate data show that people from ethnic minorities (including UK-born citizens) are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and have different outcomes in it.
Non-citizens in England and Wales accounted for 13.1% (or 43,250) of cautions and convictions in 2024 and 12.1% of the prison population (10,450 foreign national prisoners) in June 2025 (Figure 1). There is currently no official estimate of non-citizens’ share of the adult population. However, Migration Observatory calculations suggest that by 2025, roughly 13.5% of the adult population were non-citizens. In other words, the overall rate of convictions and incarceration was roughly similar for citizens and non-citizens.
Foreign nationals made up 18.7% of entries into prisons in 2025, higher than their share of either convictions or the prison population. This is driven by the fact that non-citizens are less likely than British citizens to be granted bail while awaiting trial.”
However, Radio 4’s More or Less programme has exploded extreme claims of sex offences by asylum seekers in Dorset.
More or Less – Are refugees more likely to commit crime? – BBC Sounds
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news. “On the programme: Last week, Annunziata Rees-Mogg took posted a claim about the proportion of sex offences in Dorset that are committed by asylum seekers, writing that “asylum seekers make up 0.8% of Dorset’s population and 44% of alleged sex offences. So unbelievable I had to check.” We checked too, and the number isn’t right.”