Figures from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) have revealed that the number of recorded crimes, especially those involving violence, have increased significantly across the country in the past year.
Speaking at a press conference in the German capital on Thursday, March 30th, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) announced that the number of recorded criminal offenses across the country’s 16 federal states rose by 11.5% in 2023, with authorities recording approximately some 5.6 million crimes—approximately 600,000 more cases compared to 2022, the Berlin-based newspaper Junge Freiheit reports.
It is the first time in five years that Germany has witnessed an increase in the number of criminal offenses.
The proportion of immigrant suspects—a cohort that includes asylum seekers, tolerated persons, and people illegally residing in the country—increased notably, rising to 14.8% from 12.1% the previous year.
Foreigners, meaning any non-German national, accounted for a disproportionate percentage of criminal suspects, at 37.4%, well up from 33.8% the year before. Meanwhile, German nationals made up 62.6% of the criminal suspects, down from 66.2% in 2022.
The noteworthy increase in non-German criminal suspects can be explained, at least in part, by the vast uptick in the number of immigration law violations, meaning crimes that involve residency, asylum, and freedom of movement laws in the European Union.
Federal Criminal Police (BKA) figures also revealed an unsettling rise in crimes of a more serious nature, including violent crimes and sexual offenses. Incidents of rapes, sexual offenses, and fatal assaults all rose by over 20% in 2022. While incidents of violent crime increased by 19.8%, the number of recorded violent crimes that resulted in serious bodily injuries to the victims jumped by 18.2%.
The increase in the number of robberies was even more staggering, jumping 26.8% in 2022 compared to the previous year. The number of knife attacks also rose, increasing from 7,071 in 2021 to 8,160 in 2022.
According to the figures, the number of criminal suspects under the age of 14 has also risen sharply. Officials recorded some 93,000 criminal suspects under 14 years old, representing an increase of more than 35% compared to the year before. Theft, assault with bodily harm, and property damage were the most common crimes committed by those in this particular age cohort.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) and President of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) Holger Münch have both chalked the uptick in crime to the abolition of measures enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The “return to normal public life” provides more “opportunities to commit crimes,” Faeser said during the press conference. Münch, for his part, said that “the number of cases registered in 2022 is comparable to that of 2019, the last year before the pandemic. That puts the strong increase in comparison to 2021 into perspective.”
