Previous cross-national comparison research has mainly considered contemporary forces to explain current public views about immigrants’ impact on crime. We argue that a historically informed perspective can improve our understanding of such views. In our study, we explore how two macro-historical explanatory factors—countries’ varied histories of crimmigration and past geopolitical threat—are related to the perception of immigrants’ impact on crime in European societies today. A country is considered to have a pronounced history of crimmigration when immigration law and criminal law have become increasingly intertwined over time. When a country faces the loss of or a threat to its national sovereignty or territory during or after nation-state formation, it is deemed to have been geopolitically threatened. Multilevel regression analyses based on the 2002 and 2014 European Social Survey (ESS) data from 21 countries, controlling for individual- and other country-level factors, indicate that current worries about immigrant crime in European societies have historical roots. Current public views about immigrants’ impact on crime are more evident in countries with more severe past geopolitical threat rather than being affected by a country’s history of crimmigration. The findings are discussed in terms of their relevance to research on criminalization of immigrants.

Muslim prisoners face challenges due to skepticism regarding Islamic values. This article addresses the perceived religious discrimination and lack of religious opportunity structure among adolescent Muslim inmates and how these religion-related prison experiences affect their out-group hostility. Further, it examines whether the link between these experiences and out-group hostility depends on inmates’ religiosity. Building on general strain theory, religion-related prison experiences are conceptualized as events potentially leading to outgroup hostility. The coping literature is used to identify different dimensions of religiosity that can either strengthen or weaken the relationship of interest. Data from German juvenile prisons were analyzed. Qualitative findings (N=22) indicate inmates experience disadvantages in practicing their religion but feel grateful rather than discriminated against. Quantitative results (N=311) show perceived religious discrimination is positively linked to out-group hostility, while lack of religious opportunity structure is not. Religiosity did not moderate the association between perceived religious discrimination and out-group hostility.

In this article, we explore cross-national variations in misperceptions of the foreign-born population size in European societies. We provide theoretical reasoning why national discourses on immigration articulated by politics and media should influence individual (mis)perceptions. Differentiating between salience and valence of national discourses, we also examine their interplay with individuals’ actual exposure to political and media debates. The results of multilevel regression analyses using 2014 European Social Survey (ESS) data suggest that mere salience of national discourses on immigration is not decisive when explaining (mis)perceptions of the foreign-born population size. Regarding the valence of immigration-related national discourses, we identify an ambivalent role of political discourse that is more immigrant-friendly. In countries with inclusive discourse, overestimation of the number of foreign-born people is less likely to occur but also underestimation is more pronounced. Moreover, effects of national discourse on individual misperceptions are not conditional on people’s exposure to politics and media.

Research on whether religiosity promotes or reduces prejudice has produced plenty of paradoxical findings. In this article we address the relationship between religiosity and anti-diversity attitudes (xenophobia and homophobia) among Christians in Western Germany. We ask what the relationship between religiosity and anti-diversity attitudes is and how it can be explained. Two (complementary) theoretical explanations are presented: the religious-ideology explanation emphasizes the role of fundamentalism, and the loss-of-privileges explanation underscores the importance of perceived disadvantage. Our analysis is based on a representative sample of Christians in Western Germany and provides evidence of a curvilinear religiosity-prejudice relationship. Up to a certain level of religiosity, xenophobia and homophobia decrease as religiosity increases; however, the relationship then reverses—anti-diversity attitudes are particularly pronounced among the highly religious. The level of xenophobia among the highly religious is fully explained by fundamentalism and perceived disadvantage, whereas their level of homophobia is only partially explained.