Undocumented immigration : an increased source of crime rates in the Maltese society?

Abstract

The issue of illegal immigration, although relatively not a new issue to the country of Malta, has lately gained in its popularity; it is in present time, one of the countries' hot issues which now, for more than a decade has been the cause for various debates, such debates being both foreign and domestic in nature. This paper will tackle mainly the domestic side of the issue, a concept which has also been carried out in much larger countries such as the U.K. and the U.S. where the conducted study will analyze the impact of illegal immigration activity within the Maltese Society. In this paper, a series of events will be portrayed leading to the current state of Malta's undocumented immigration situation, first starting with their arrival, detention and their achievement I rejection of status to the final stage of establishing a new community within the Maltese society. Being a relatively new concept for the Maltese society, various are the perceptions taken with regards to the presence of undocumented immigrants, leading one to question whether undocumented immigration contributes to being an increased source of crime rates within Malta? Consequently, how can any criminal activity be attributed as being an effect deriving from the incoming number of undocumented immigration? Any criminal activity, addressed in this paper, is any activity which infringes the Laws of Malta and could originate from any individual irrelevant of his/her race, skin colour, nationality, education and/or financial status.