Police in Faroe Islands manually review foreign national crime cases amid data limitations

The police in the Faroe Islands have chosen to manually review cases involving foreign nationals, as they do not record the ethnicity or nationality of individuals charged or suspected of crimes. As a result, statistics on the criminality of native Faroese are unavailable; the focus is solely on crimes committed by foreigners.

In May, the national broadcaster sought insights into convictions involving non-Danish citizens from 2018 to 2023. However, the police indicated they could not provide this data, citing limitations in their electronic reporting system, which also lacks records of nationality and ethnicity for those charged with crimes.

Despite this, it is possible to identify the number of cases involving foreigners, as the Faroese police have manually analyzed cases typically leading to deportation. These cases often involve serious offenses such as violence, sexual assault, drug trafficking, and driving under the influence.

This manual review was conducted to assess whether the number of cases involving foreigners has increased in recent years. Data revealed a consistent rise in crimes linked to individuals without Danish or Faroese identification numbers, escalating from 12 cases in both 2019 and 2020 to 14 in 2021, 21 in 2022, and 40 in 2023.

Notably, the increase in foreign nationals involved in such cases is proportionate to the overall rise in the number of foreigners entering the country, indicating no change in the crime rate among this population. Furthermore, there is no basis to claim that foreigners are involved in more criminal activities than Faroese nationals, as data on the latter’s involvement is lacking. Approximately one percent of foreigners in the Faroe Islands are charged in cases that may lead to imprisonment, according to police statistics.