Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Immigrant criminality

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. This was a no consensus, leaning towards weak keep. Cirt (talk) 02:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Immigrant criminality

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The article as it stands is basically anti-immigrant propaganda, and I think that any article at this title will be fated to be biased. It makes the implicit assumption that there is a thing called "immigrant criminality" (some special character of immigrants), and looks at the issue of crime conducted by immigrants in isolation of other factors and without addressing the issue of crime against immigrants. Fences&Windows 19:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. -- Fences&Windows 19:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. -- Fences&Windows 19:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Crime importation appears an attempt at a more scholarly interpretation of such an article.--Pontificalibus (talk) 20:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think the problem is mostly that the article doesn't communicate clearly to readers from outside the countries on which it concentrates why it exists. This article is no more inherently anti-immigrant than the article negro is inherently racist. Ausländerkriminalität (foreigner criminality, translated here as immigrant criminality) periodically becomes a key topic in public discourse in German-speaking countries, often dominating elections. It is also a precisely defined term in the German legal system and appears in official criminality statistics. These facts explain why the German Wikipedia has an extensive article about the topic which debunks the widespread misconception that immigrants are more likely to be criminal, by explaining that the high numbers in the statistics are due to high mobility of criminals and the fact that some of the most frequently committed crimes by foreigners such as illegally entering the country or working without work permit cannot possibly be committed by citizens. Hans Adler 20:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently my inner censor became active, making my example less effective than it was intended. The standard example of a non-racist article with a highly offensive racist title is of course nigger. In my opinion every argument for deletion regardless of notability needs to be discounted if it could be equally used to argue for the deletion of that article.

A general article on immigration and criminality makes more sense than an article specifically on the problematic term "immigrant criminality". But that's an argument for renaming, not for deleting. Hans Adler 09:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The very title seems inflammatory; we don't have articles about other propagandistic terms such as Black crime (there is only a redirect from there to Race and crime in the United States), so there seems to be no reason to have an article called "Immigrant criminality". Perhaps the title should be made into a redirect, though. Stonemason89 (talk) 21:51, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This problem can be fixed by renaming the article, there is no need to delete it. Hans Adler 09:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SNOW keep, come on. Very notable topic. So it is "inflammatory"? Well, so is depictions of Muhammad, race and crime and Intelligent Design. WP:CENSOR, andof course WP:TIGERS. Of course the article needs work. Deletion requests on notable topics that need cleanup and expansion are not helpful. --dab (𒁳) 22:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- It's not about censorship, it's about the fact that your choice of article topic is inherently biased. It makes the false assumption that there is a type of crime called "Immigrant criminality" and then simply lists crimes committed by immigrants, rather than demonstrating that this specific category of crime actually exists. This article actually carelessly propogates a myth, see:[1][2][3] Fences&Windows 23:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but rename using the Race and Crime in the United States as a good example of a title that doesn't have any POV connotations. "Immigrant criminality" as a title seems to make a value judgement whereas something like "Crime amongst immigrant populations" or something else that makes a neutral statement that retains accuracy. My standard POV test goes something like this: Can another article that is the exact negative of this article be created using easily found reliable sources? Since this answer is clearly yes (seeing that one could easily write a "The myth of Immigrant Criminality" article) then the name should be changed or the article re-writtent to encompass both sides of the discussion. Nefariousski (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- ok, but rename to what? The point is to address the concept of Ausländerkriminalität. It seems gratuitous to keep this in its German form of a 21-letter compound when the current English translation is "immigrant criminality". Crime importation is if anything more "inflammatory" because it insinuates that "these foreigners are criminals", as opposed to the rather more neutral observation that there is heightened criminality in the immigrant milieu. Maybe, just maybe, because as an immigrant you have less opportunities and not because you are "foreign". --dab (𒁳) 17:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with you 100% on this being a valid article. And I'm not disputing the concept but literal translations often produce unintended results regarding context and implied intent of a phrase. As the article is currently named it makes an implied value judgement. I'm not going to presume that I can come up with some elegant title that makes everyone happy. Maybe the best solution would be to keep article on the condition that you open a RM and post said RM on various notice boards so suggestions can be made and discussed? Then you can redirect the german term and "Immigrant Criminality" both to the new article. Nefariousski (talk) 23:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. "Immigrant Criminality" is a controversial term. From 37 Google News results for "Immigrant criminality", 18 use it as a part of "myth of immigrant criminality". According to WP:FRINGE, articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community. The article doesn't do that. I also get the impression that it tries to cast the complex issue of European immigration in a bad light. The seemingly staggering Swiss statistic, for example, fails to mention that the actual number of prisoners is relatively low (less than 5900 in 2006) and that the discrepancy can partially be explained by the fact that the non-naturalized population has a significantly higher ratio of young males. And what about Sweden? Am I simply supposed to believe that In Sweden, counting on the amount of money criminal immigrants cost the society has been banned with the explanation that "...you cannot calculate the value of human lives"? Statements like this are not supported by sources, and considering that two of the five sources link to Wikipedia articles and another two are inaccessible, the entire article is practically unsourced. — Rankiri (talk) 01:29, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- what do you mean "the article doesn't do that"? The article states plainly that the term is politically charged. The entire point of the article is to point out the role of immigrant criminality as a motor of right-wing populism. Nobody claims that it is "neutral" to exploit crime statistics to get more votes, but our job is to cover the phenomenon, not to delete it because we dislike it. Your point on "the actual number of prisoners" is rather surreal. The absolute number is irrelevant. Of course there are less prisoners in Switzerland than in the US or in China. Probably related to Switzerland having a smaller total population, wouldn't you say? What counts is prisoners per capita. The point on young males is of course very important and easily referenced. Young males tend to (a) migrate more, and (b) commit more crimes. Hey presto, a correlation between migration and criminality, feel free to introduce this angle. --dab (𒁳) 17:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say we should delete it. I said that the article has a range of WP:NPOV-related issues that need to be addressed. And just because the article has a single sentence that says that allegations of immigrant criminality can be used as propaganda, it doesn't exactly mean that the article discusses the fact that almost half of the Google News stories treat the concept of immigrant criminality as a myth. — Rankiri (talk) 17:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no issue with the article being tagged for cleanup. It's the AfD that I find phenomenally misguided. I would also like to point to the article on de-wiki, which is introduced by "Ausländerkriminalität ('foreigner criminality') is a criminological term referring to criminal acts committed by foreigners. The term is also used as a political catchphrase." This is what the article needs to address: both the statistics, and the political debate surrounding them. --dab (𒁳) 17:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that writing poorly sourced and non-neutral articles on sensitive topics is 'phenomenally misguided'. I told you that this article was biased months ago, so you had plenty of time to clean it up before this nomination. Fences&Windows 23:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Obvious magnet for racist beliefs masquerading as theories. Articles, such as this one, that present statistics as if they mean something are generally original research and should be avoided and, unless some non-fringe academic sources that discuss intrinsic criminal qualities of immigrants can be found, this article should be deleted. --RegentsPark (talk) 03:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- you want to delete troll magnets as a point principle? To think that I spent years trying to fix them instead. Yours is a very, ahem, elegant solution to many of Wikipedia's problems, but unfortunately not one forseen by our deletion criteria. --dab (𒁳) 17:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - You misphrase my comment above. I am not against troll magnets per se. I am against troll magnets masquerading as theories. (It's the masquerade I object to.) I'm ok with troll magnet articles if they are not original research and presenting a bunch of statistics is OR whichever way you cut it. However, if there are reliable non-fringe academic sources that study "immigrant criminality" as a phenomenon worthy of study (the third part of my comment) then there is no question that the article should be kept (are there?) That's my opinion, the rest, to paraphrase an old saying, is up to consensus. :) --RegentsPark (talk) 20:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Although the article's content is considerably lacking, the subject matter is still a notable one. First I think a renaming is appropriate, to something along the lines of Crime and immigration. And the subject of the relationship between crime and immigration is a notable one, and it has played a major role in discussions of immigration, both historically and in the present day. Of course, it would need a lot of cleanup, removing the original research, adding considerable content, and remodelling it to meet a worldwide view, but the subject itself is deserving of an article. That is, the idea that there is a direct or causal relationship between immigration or crime, even if it is unsupported, is significant enough to be reported. Calgary (talk) 05:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, as there are at least two books and one research report about Ausländerkriminalität (the German term), cited by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, which is part of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, in its article about the same topic. [4] Rename to a less problematic title to discourage abuse of the article for immigrant-bashing, but keep a redirect. Hans Adler 09:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Unencyclopedic. I'm sure not even Encyclopædia Britannica had an article Crime amongst the negroes, because it wasn't a scholarly subject. A couple of German books might establish the notability of an author or some software, but an entire field of work would be required to support an article such as this, anything less and it would indistinguishable from a POV piece, such as Goat-Man relationships in Sudan supported by this reliable BBC reference would be.--Pontificalibus (talk) 23:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- wth, "crime amongst the negroes"? And non-existence of an article in the EB is grounds for deletion now? This is just WP:IDONTLIKEIT now. We have scores of quotable references establishing the topic as notable, certainly in Europe and in the US. The topic is very much part of current affairs in Europe. In the US, the term seems to smack of the 19th century, and appears to be stigmatized now, so it is not applied to current problems. The world does not consist of the USA alone. And even if it did this would still be a valid historical topic. In Europe, this is very much part of the problem of right-wing populism. Random reference, takes about 10 seconds to locate on google books, Patrick Richard Ireland, Becoming Europe: immigration, integration, and the welfare state (2004), p. 82, illustrating the mechanism of immigrant criminality both fuelling and being conjured up by far-right populists in Nuremberg in the 1990s. Lots of other examples are yours for the picking. If you are interested in the topic, start working on the article already but stop pretending this AfD has any sort of merit. Am I a right-wing populist for insisting that right-wing populism must be covered? No. See WP:TIGERS. --dab (𒁳) 13:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly you misunderstood my analogy. Encyclopædia Britannica didn't have an article Crime amongst the negroes in its early 20th century editions because even though it was a subject discussed widely at the time, there weren't any serious sources covering it and it wasn't a mainstream enough notion for a suitable enecyclopedia article. There is nothing in this article of value about immigrant criminality. There are some stats about crime and immigrants, but nothing that reveals anything about whether an immigrant commits more crime than a non-immigrant. There is no data that controls for socio-economic group, income etc and exludes offences such as illegal entry. It would be great to find lots of references that cover this and show immigrants actually commit less crime than their "native" equivalents, but such a body of research doesn't seem to exist(?). Without this proper data, the article is misleading and leads the reader to make false assumptions with the misguided use of statistics. Unless many sources with suitable data can be found, indicating it as a suitable subject for an encyclopedia, the article should be deleted. --Pontificalibus (talk) 20:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep. Rename to Immigration and crime. The notability of the topic is beyond dispute. The article has been tagged since Oct 2009; there are articles that have remained tagged for years, so why the big rush to swing the ax on this one? This nomination seems based on nothing more substantial than distaste. (Please someone address Hans Adler's point about nigger too, thanks.) rudra (talk) 14:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, possibly rename as per some suggestions here. I've seen some pretty abhorrent takes on this topic, and it's certainly open to racist abuse. But that's not a reason to delete it - even if it's sometimes abused, it's been a notable topic for quite some time. -- Boing! said Zebedee 15:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This article needs a lot of work to make it more neutral (for example, the fact that a direct comparison and natives can be flawed, needs to be explored in more detail) and to have a more worldwide view. However, it's well sourced and the topic is obviously widely referenced, so it doesn't really fit any criteria for deletion. I agree that renaming might be a good step towards making the article more neutral. Kostja (talk) 15:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.