Arrests of Eastern Europeans up 56 per cent in the Black Country
Arrests of Eastern Europeans have rocketed 56 per cent in the Black Country while the number of people with UK nationality being detained has dropped.
A total of 1,393 people from countries like Russia, Estonia, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, and Latvia were arrested in 2015. This compared to 894 in 2011.
The number of Latvians arrested jumped from 75 to 167, Hungarians arrested from 17 to 35 and Poles from 278 to 447, figures obtained by the Express & Star show.
Romanian arrests went up 223 to 363 over the period, Slovakia arrests from 43 to 85, Estonian arrests from two to six and Slovenian dropped from one to zero.
Meanwhile, the number of British nationals arrested fell from 18,258 to 17,592, a drop of four per cent, in the Black Country – the Dudley, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Sandwell local policing units.
Last month, it was revealed West Midlands Police had spent £7.6 million on translators over the past five years. The interpretors were needed for more than 150 different languages and dialect.
West Midlands Police Crime Commissioner David Jamieson said: "We live in a globalised world in which criminals have little respect for national borders.
"The increase in arrests of foreign nationals is broadly proportionate with their population increase.
"Our membership of the EU and use of the European Arrest Warrant, allows us to track and arrest criminals from whichever country they come."
West Midlands Police 'could not comment in the build-up to the EU referendum'. In January a Polish thief who targeted elderly people in Wolverhampton was jailed for two years, eight months.
Gabriel Lipinski, 21, of Willenhall Road, had a previous conviction for a street robbery in Poland.
Also in January, Lithuanian inmigrant, Gediminas Babusis, was jailed for six months after being caught with a stolen van less than three months after arriving in the UK. Babusis, 44, pleaded guilty to the theft of the vehicle from Sowers Close, Willenhall.
Last month, Polish 20-year-old Adrian Anderski was locked up for three years, two months, for trying to rob a woman and break into vehicles at Wolverhampton train station. Anderski, of Wellington Road, Tipton, admitted attempted robbery and theft.
Foreign-born population has increased from about 3.8 million in 1993 to over 8.3 million in 2014.