One in 50 Albanians in the UK is in jail, according to analysis revealing the first league table of criminality by nationality.

More than 1,200 Albanians have been sent to prison from a migrant population of nearly 53,000 Albanians living in the UK who do not have UK citizenship, according to a Telegraph analysis of official data.

They top a table of more than 130 nationalities ranked on the number of prisoners per 10,000 of the population in the UK from their countries. Albanians are followed by Kosovans, Vietnamese, Algerians, Jamaicans, Eritreans, Iraqis and Somalis.

The analysis suggests that the overall imprisonment rate of foreign nationals is 27 per cent higher than for British citizens. It shows 18.2 inmates per 10,000 migrants compared with the UK’s 14 per 10,000. German, Italian, Indian, Greek, US, Sri Lankan, French and Chinese nationals are the least likely to be jailed.

It is the first time such an analysis has been carried out amid claims that there has been an “institutional cover-up” over the publication of migrant crime rates.

Senior Tory MPs have urged both the Conservative and Labour governments to publish data like Denmark and some US states that would enable league tables of the crime rates of each nation’s migrants to be compiled.

While data on nationalities among the prison population reveals the scale of serious crimes committed by non-UK nationals, information about offences committed by migrants for which they are not jailed is not published.

A backbench amendment to Rishi Sunak’s Sentencing Bill would have required the Government each year to present a report to Parliament detailing the nationality, visa and asylum status of every offender convicted in English and Welsh courts in the previous 12 months. The Bill was ditched due to the election.

Supporters including Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick and former minister Neil O’Brien argue such data would enable the Home Office to toughen up visa and deportation policies for nationalities linked to higher rates of crime in the UK.

Mr O’Brien said it was a “fascinating” analysis by The Telegraph which revealed “enormous variations” between nationalities. 

“It is shameful that the Government refuses to publish so much of the information which it holds about this subject. It should be available to the public so we can have an informed debate,” he said.

“The Home Office knows the immigration status of prisoners and whether they were here legally or illegally, but it does not publish this. It knows about the offending history of overseas nationals in our prisons and whether they are committing multiple offences but it does not publish this.

“Across the board, the migration debate is hampered by a lack of data which the Government could easily publish but chooses not to on things like the impact on public services and spending. The data the Government is refusing to disclose on criminal justice is a particularly bad example of this.”

Mr Jenrick said: “This analysis confirms what the public will have sensed for a long time: some nationalities are more likely to go on to commit serious crimes than others. It once again points to the need for a far more tightly controlled immigration system, including more rigorous security checks for nationalities linked to criminality in the UK.”

 The Telegraph compiled the league table by taking data from the Ministry of Justice which shows there are 10,435 foreign nationals in jails in England and Wales compared with 76,866 British nationals. Nations with fewer than 20 people in UK jails were excluded because of the low sample size.

This was cross-referenced with Office for National Statistics 2021 census data, from which was extracted the number of foreign nationals from each country who have not got a UK passport. There may be some margin for error as some foreign nationals could have been granted citizenship but not applied for a passport.

The Albanian imprisonment rate was 232.33 per 10,000 people – or one in 50. This was calculated based on the census data showing  68,672 foreign-born Albanians lived in the UK. Excluding the 15,860 without a UK passport leaves some 52,000. With 1,227 in jail, it equates to two per cent of Albanians.

The analysis is likely to have underestimated the size of the Albanian population as it does not take into account illegal migrants including more than 12,000 who reached the UK in small boats across the Channel in 2022. Some estimates have put it as high as 140,000, which would make it just under one in 100 in jail.

At the time the census was conducted in 2021, there were 300 more Albanians in prison than there are now, meaning the proportion would be even higher than current estimates.

The Albanians are followed by Kosovans with an imprisonment rate of 150.23 per 10,000, Vietnamese (148.88), Algerians (124.41), Jamaicans (110.77), Eritreans (110.7), Iraqis (104.43) and Somalis (100.37). All have more than one in 100 of their respective populations in jail.

They are at least 25 times more likely to be in jail than foreign nationals with the lowest rates of imprisonment and at least seven times the rate of British citizens at 14.27 per 100,000 of the population.

Germany had the fewest, at 4.68 per 10,000 (one in 2,000), followed by Italy (4.96), India (6.24), Greece (6.36), US (7.27), Sri Lanka (8.17), France (8.64) and China (9.39).

A government spokesman said: “This Government is committed to delivering justice for victims and safer streets for our communities. Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced and, where appropriate, we will pursue their deportation.”

(Source: The Telegraph)