Offenders and Corona: In the pandemic, crime is shifting

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, crime recorded by the police in Germany has declined overall.

This is borne out by data and trend analyzes for 2020 from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the State Criminal Police Offices that are available to WELT.

But the problem is that the statistics are only of limited use.

"The crime statistics for the years 2020 and 2021 are basically as worthless as none before," says the chairman of the Federation of German Criminal Investigators (BDK), Sebastian Fiedler. “Of course we are seeing declining case numbers in many areas. But we have to assume growing crime in areas that are largely in the dark and that we therefore do not see in the statistics. "