Overview

• Foreign nationals accounted for 14.1% of sexual offence convictions in 2024 in England and Wales, according to MoJ figures drawn from the Police National Computer.
• Convictions of foreign nationals for sexual offences rose from 687 in 2021 to 1,114 in 2024, compared with an increase for British nationals from 4,409 to 6,142.
• Other trends for foreign nationals included theft convictions up 77.9%, criminal damage and arson up 105.4%, robbery up 18.9%, weapons possession up 9.4% and drug offences up 11.3%, while violent offence convictions fell 28.7%.
• The seven nationalities most common in recent Channel crossings recorded a 110% rise in sex offence convictions over the period, and 2024 non-summary convictions were highest for Romanians, Albanians and Poles.
• A government spokesman cited nearly 5,200 removals of foreign national offenders in the first year in office, as politicians push for fuller crime-by-nationality reporting and the MoJ cautions that records use a primary nationality and can count multiple offences per offender.