Abstract
This contribution assesses the topic of correlations between increasing refugee numbers and crime statistics based on data collected during the migration of more than one million refugees to Germany in 2015 and 2016. The first part is about the difficulties of comparing crime rates of nationals (in this case Germans) to those of nonnationals for various reasons, including registration and especially due to certain prevailing social factors and circumstances, such as gender and age. The contribution further analyses the paradox of citizens estimating sharply increasing crime rates, while the crime rates for most offenses are in fact declining. After displaying and evaluating the rate of crimes committed by nonnationals, the contribution turns toward the subject of crimes committed against nonnationals, with a special focus on crimes committed against refugees in general and refugee women in particular.
Keywords
- Refugees
- Crime
- Correlation
- Critical
- Germany
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- 1.
The name national-socialist underground (NSU) refers to a right-wing extremist terrorist group discovered in November 2011 in Germany, which operated already in the 1990s, but was not recognized by federal investigations for many years.
- 2.
An overview of the content of the PKS 2015 in English can be found here: https://www.bka.de/EN/CurrentInformation/PoliceCrimeStatistics/2015/pcs2015.htm (28.12.2017).
- 3.
Cf. PKS 2015 Yearbook, pp. 6, 190ff.
- 4.
Concerning the issue of crimes committed by migrants see: Feltes et al. (2016), p. 157 ff., http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1221/umfrage/anzahl-der-auslaender-in-deutschland-nach-herkunftsland/ (28.12.2017).
- 5.
On December 31. 2015, a total of 9.107.893 foreigners lived in Germany; Total population in September 2015: 81.770.944.
- 6.
2. Periodischer Sicherheitsbericht der Bundesregierung, 2006, p. 20.
- 7.
See Henkel: Anzeigeverhalten. In: Kriminologie-Lexikon Online, http://www.krimlex.de/artikel.php?BUCHSTABE=&KL_ID=17 (19.06.2016).
- 8.
In 9.4% of all cases, a charge is made, in 11.5% a penalty order is issued (Numbers taken from the year 2014).
- 9.
Cf. Feltes (2013), available here: https://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/dokumentenarchiv/Dokument?Id=MMST16/951 (28.12.2017).
- 10.
See Mansel, in Groenemeyer and Mansel (2003), pp. 261–283.
- 11.
See PKS 2015 Yearbook, p. 190.
- 12.
Approximately 513,000 or 56% of the total group of non-German suspects were under 30 years of age (in 2015).
- 13.
This calculation is also inadmissible due to the fact that not all 1.1 million refugees were in Germany for the complete year of 2015 and thus could not commit crimes there (28.12.2017).
- 14.
See Heinz (2003), available at: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/rtf/kik/Jugendkriminalitaet-2003-7-e.pdf and Heinz (2015), available at: http://www.bpb.de/politik/innenpolitik/gangsterlaeufer/203562/zahlen-und-fakten?p=all. (28.12.2017).
- 15.
PKS Berlin 2014, p. 104.
- 16.
Cf. Steffen (1992) available at https://www.polizei.bayern.de/content/4/3/7/15_auslaenderkriminalitaet_bayern.pdf (28.12.2017).
- 17.
See Eisner (1998), p. 11 (11 ff.).
- 18.
Cf. https://www.uno-fluechtlingshilfe.de/fluechtlinge/zahlen-fakten.html (28.12.2017).
- 19.
Cf. the Poverty- and Wealth-report of Germany’s federal government, available here http://www.armuts-und-reichtumsbericht.de/DE/Startseite/start.html (28.12.2017).In the year 2013, ten percent of all households owned 51.9% of the net wealth. 15 years earlier, the figure was still at 45.1%. In contrast, the lower 50% of all households owned less than one percent of net wealth in 2013. In 1998, they still owned 2.9%.
- 20.
Cf. Weisburd et al. (2016).
- 21.
- 22.
See Röpke (2017), p. 19.
- 23.
Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage der Abgeordneten Monika Lazar, Luise Amtsberg, Volker Beck (Köln), weiterer Abgeordneter und der Fraktion BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN – Drucksache 18/6513 – Fragen zur polizeilichen Lagebilderstellung von Anschlägen gegen Flüchtlingsunterkünfte (PDF), Deutscher Bundestag, 14. December 2016, p. 2f.
- 24.
Kriminalität: BKA-Chef warnt vor Gefahr neuer rechter Terrorzellen, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 25. Juni 2016.
- 25.
sueddeutsche.de: Mehr als 3500 Angriffe auf Flüchtlinge.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
http://www.taz.de/Brandanschlaege-2016/!5367296/ (28.12.2017).
- 30.
Röpke (2017), p. 114.
- 31.
Benček and Strasheim (2016), pp. 1–11.
- 32.
- 33.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostock-Lichtenhagen_riots (28.12.2017).
- 34.
- 35.
Röpke (2017), p. 172.
- 36.
In 2017, more and more information support the assumption, that there have been more co-perpetrators and a broad infrastructure of supporters.
- 37.
For an overview in English, see: https://www.nsu-watch.info/2017/03/the-nsu-case-in-germany/ (28.12.2017).
- 38.
Röpke (2017), p. 13.
- 39.
See: Zick (2016), available at: https://www.stiftung-mercator.de/de/projekt/zugleich-zugehoerigkeit-un-gleichwertigkeit/ (28.07.2016).
- 40.
See: Interview with Andreas Zick in the newspaper taz on 26.07.2016, http://www.taz.de/!5327727/ (28.12.2017); Resources for this project can be found here: https://www.stiftung-mercator.de/de/projekt/zugleich-zugehoerigkeit-un-gleichwertigkeit/ (28.12.2017).
- 41.
Röpke (2017), p. 36.
- 42.
Röpke (2017), p. 137.
- 43.
Röpke (2017), p. 39.
- 44.
- 45.
- 46.
Röpke (2017), p. 181.
- 47.
- 48.
See Messerschmidt (2015), p. 71.
- 49.
See Kofman et al. (2000), p. 195.
- 50.
See Kofman et al. (2000), p. 169.
- 51.
See Kofman et al. (2000), p. 195.
- 52.
Bonewit and Shreeves (2016).
- 53.
Franciska Vigaud-Walsh in: thinkprogress 11th October 2015.
- 54.
Rabe (2015), p. 21.
- 55.
Luthmann (2017), p. 6.
- 56.
Luthmann (2017), p. 52.
- 57.
Unicef-Report (2016).
- 58.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 28.09.2016.
- 59.
Sansonetti (2016), p. 8.
- 60.
FRA (2016), p. 10.
- 61.
Mucci and Paravicini (2016), p. 5.
- 62.
Mucci and Paravicini (2016), p. 7.
- 63.
Mucci and Paravicini (2016), p. 4.
- 64.
FRA: Current migration situation in the EU: separated children (2016), p. 7.
- 65.
Mitra (2016), p. 4.
- 66.
Mitra (2016), p. 4.
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Feltes, T., List, K., Bertamini, M. (2018). More Refugees, More Offenders, More Crime? Critical Comments with Data from Germany. In: Kury, H., Redo, S. (eds) Refugees and Migrants in Law and Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72159-0_26
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