Germany: Crime rates lowest for 25 years, apocalyptic visions of immigrant crime seem to have been exaggerated

German newspaper Die Welt reports that recently published statistics for 2017 show that crime overall in Germany is at a record low – compared to 2016, the statistics demonstrate an overall decline of almost 10 %, the biggest in 25 years. The pessimistic predictions made by politicians who are opposed to receiving refugees, who have scared their constituents by predicting Germany would be devastated by crimes perpetrated by immigrants during the next few years, have apparently not come to pass.

The statistics will be officially presented to the public by German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on 8 May. Last year 5.76 million felonies were recorded by the Federal Republic, almost 611 000 fewer than in 2016.

The decline of 9.6 % is the steepest since 1993, when Germany first produced federal crime statistics after the country reunited in 1990. Last year the number of thefts significantly declined, by 11.8 %, as did home invasions, by 23 %.

A less significant decline is recorded for all other felonies of 2.4 %, with the number of murders even slightly rising, by 3.2 %, and the number of drug-related offenses also rising by 9.2 %. Crime in Germany has otherwise been on a long decline since 2004 with the exception of the years 2015 and 2016, when it did rise slightly.

According to experts that increase was caused by the arrival of a large number of immigrants to Germany, but the number of such arrivals dramatically fell last year. The German authorities recorded 2.11 million criminal suspects overall, 10.5 % fewer than in 2016, 736 265 of whom were not German citizens, a decline of 22.8 % for that category.

Among immigrants there were 300 680 criminal suspects last year, a decline of 40.7 % year-on-year. Despite the fact that the police statistics have always demonstrated that foreign nationals commit fewer crimes than people born in Germany do, many inhabitants of the country accuse immigrants of being responsible for criminal activity.