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German Crime Figures May Raise Voter Security Fears
Germany recorded a sharp rise in a range of criminal offenses last year, a development that could add to voters’ mounting concerns about security amid a record influx of refugees.
Statistics released on Monday showed burglaries up 9.9% in 2015 from a year earlier, with shoplifting and pickpocketing up 7% and a 19% increase in “politically motivated” violence—ranging from racist attacks by neo-Nazis to vandalism committed by radical left-wing gangs.
“In international comparison, Germany remains a safe country. But there are areas…where the trend over the last year is reason for concern,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière told journalists as he presented the figures.
Mr. de Maizière attributed the steep rise in burglaries to “traveling criminal gangs from Southeast and Eastern Europe.”
Along with the overall increase in some crimes, the number of foreign criminal suspects rose by 12% on the year, and overall in 2015 made up 27% of all crime suspects. That could add to concerns in the public and among security officials that last year’s inflow of about one million migrants and asylum seekers in the country, many of them undocumented, posed a public security risk.
Earlier this year, several security officials told The Wall Street Journal they were concerned about professional criminals from Eastern Europe and North-Africa mingling among asylum seekers.
Klaus Bouillon, the interior minister of Germany’s small state of Saarland, said traveling criminal groups from Romania, Bulgaria and neighboring countries committed 90% of all burglaries in his state.
“This makes people feel unsafe, and when people feel unsafe we have a problem for our democracy,” he said.
Reflecting mounting tension in the country, politically motivated crimes reached their highest level since 2001. Criminal acts of violence attributed to far-right perpetrators were up 44% while those committed by left-wing radicals jumped 35%, the report showed. Attacks against refugee shelters more than quintupled to 1,031 from 199 in 2014, the report showed.
This “shows a threatening trend in our society,” Mr. de Maizière said.
Opinion surveys showed security concerns among the public also rocketed after the mass sexual assaults and robberies committed on New Year’s Eve in the city of Cologne by what police and witnesses said were mainly Arab and North African men.
“The AfD can of course capitalize on this…and those who already have a preference for the AfD will see themselves vindicated,” said Manfred Güllner, head of the Forsa polling group, referring to the anti-immigrant right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party.
Mr. Güllner added, however, that the perception of rising crime was already so established in the public that few voters would be surprised by the new figures.
While Mr. de Maizière said there were areas of concern, the government played down a headline 4.1% increase in the overall number of criminal offenses to 6.3 million, attributing it mainly to a statistical and legal quirk.
The figure included a sharp increase in offenses against immigration laws due to the large numbers of asylum seekers who entered the country last year. Under German law, policemen must record each illegal entry as an offense. Stripped of this category, the government said, crime numbers overall were flat.
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