“An immigrant is a foreigner, but a foreigner is not necessarily an immigrant. The prisons have a lot of people who are foreigners, but they are not immigrants”, said Luís Neves, who was heard in Parliament regarding data on crime in Portugal.

In a hearing at the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, at the request of the Liberal Initiative, which asked for “clarifications on the real state of crime in Portugal”, Luís Neves also said that the PJ has data on the nationality of all detainees, but its disclosure is not permitted.

“The PJ knows the nationality of all our detainees, but we do not share [this data] because we have not been allowed to share it”, explained Luís Neves regarding the issue of introducing nationality in the Annual Internal Security Report (RASI), which has been discussed in recent times.

Still in relation to the nationality of detainees - including those on remand and those convicted - the national director of the Judicial Police explained that nationalities such as Pakistani or Indian, for example, “do not have a greater criminal preponderance than other nationalities”. “Quite the opposite,” he added.

Another piece of information highlighted during the hearing that took place in parliament is related to preventive detainees, and Luís Neves mentioned that “Portuguese courts arrest more foreigners [when applying coercive measures] due to the risk of escape”.

The application of this coercive measure does not mean, added the national director of the PJ, that the conviction rate is higher for foreigners than for Portuguese.

When asked about possible “feelings of insecurity” among the population, Luís Neves said that there is no scientific and validated study that confirms this popular feeling.