Despite the feeling of insecurity complained of by residents and shopkeepers in the parish of Bonfim, in Porto, the evolution of crime in the city appears to have been sensitive to the covid-19 pandemic but not to the increase in immigration. Crime in the municipality and district of Porto was lower last year than in 2019 and 2018, despite the fact that in these six years the number of foreigners residing in the district has more than doubled.
The professor at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Porto, Luís Fernandes, who was scientific director of the former Permanent Security Observatory, highlights that, in general, studies show that immigrants commit fewer crimes than locals. But he recognizes that, if there is a large group of foreigners living in a country, it is normal for them to commit crimes like nationals.
The investigator insists that it is exactly the same to be robbed by an Algerian or a Portuguese person and that the reaction of the criminal system must be the same, since we are all equal before the law. He understands, however, that some phenomena can generate a feeling of insecurity. “The more different the other person is, the more fear it generates”, he notes.
That’s why the university student considers it important that the police respond to everyday crime, without neglecting the work of discovering who these extremist groups are, like the one that invaded a house where 11 immigrants live in the early hours of last Friday.
The group, which would have between 10 and 15 members, according to the PSP, was armed with bats, sticks and knives, having attacked some of the immigrants. This Tuesday, some of the victims of the attack, the majority of whom were Algerian citizens, were interviewed by the Judiciary Police, as part of the investigation into the crime of which they were the target.
Luís Fernandes says he is more concerned about extremists than simple crime, because, as part of organized crime, they are more dangerous.
Foreigners doubled in five years
Back to the numbers. In 2022, the last year for which official data is available, the now-defunct Foreigners and Borders Service counted 66,434 foreigners residing in the Porto district, more than double the 32,614 registered in 2018, that is, five years earlier. They represented 8.5% of foreigners nationally. In the city of Porto, there were 23,312 non-national residents, that is, 9.7% of the total of more than 240 thousand inhabitants of the municipality.
Last year, authorities recorded 14,552 crimes in the city, 5.6% less than those recorded in 2019 and a reduction of 8.7% compared to 2018, according to data from successive annual internal security reports. The crimes registered in the municipality of Porto in 2023 meant an increase compared to the 13,417 registered in the previous year and the 10,956 recorded in 2021, the first full year of the covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, the year in which, in March, the new coronavirus paralyzed the country and much of the world, security forces recorded 12,188 incidents.
The evolution of crime in the Porto district had exactly the same trend, that is, last year the number of incidents was lower than in 2019. And not only in relation to that year, but to the previous five years. In 2023, authorities recorded 55,730 crimes in the district, less than the 57,879 recorded five years earlier.
For Luís Fernandes, who directed the Center for Deviant Behavior Sciences at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Porto for several years, this tension between nationals and foreigners was expected to occur. “It was a matter of time. The same thing happened 20 or 30 years ago in more developed European countries that attracted large waves of immigrants”, recalls the university professor.
The researcher regrets that the country needs immigrants for jobs that nationals do not want to do, such as agriculture, but then does not “properly integrate these people”. And he regrets that some have the belief that there are pure Portuguese and forget that there are four million Portuguese emigrants.
As for the city of Porto, the researcher recalls that in recent years the city has seen a profound change in the occupation of its space, essentially in the center, which first emptied and then was populated by tourists. “This repopulation has not yet generated new balances”, he laments.
