Crime: The number of convictions against foreigners rises by 51 percent

display

The number of convictions for criminal offenses has fallen by ten percent over the past decade.

Between 2010 and 2019, the number of Germans convicted fell by 27 percent

(644,000 to 473,000).

The number of convicted foreigners increased by 51 percent (170,000 to 256,000).

In 2019, more than a third of those convicted did not have a German passport.

The information comes from a response from the Federal Ministry of Justice available to WELT AM SONNTAG to the request of the AfD member of the Bundestag René Springer.

The sharp rise in the number of convictions of foreigners is mainly explained by the foreign population that grew from 7.2 to 10.1 million (plus 40 percent) in the period from 2010 to 2019, according to the Federal Statistical Office.

This information also includes convictions for crimes against the Residence Act, which almost only foreigners can commit.

display

In 2019, 9,313 non-Germans were convicted of such crimes and only 155 people with German passports.

The law enforcement statistics include naturalized people who keep their old German citizenship.

Germans are mainly criminal offenses for fraud

According to the Ministry of Justice's response, the most frequent convictions of Germans took place in 2019 for fraud (53,000), theft (47,000), drunkenness on the road (40,000), fraudulent activities (32,000), drug possession (27,000) and driving without a license (25,000).

The crimes for which foreigners were convicted in 2019 were the most common theft (38,000), driving without a license (20,000), fraud (19,000), fraudulent activity (18,000), drunk driving (14,000) and assault ( 12,000).

display

According to the answer, the most common nationalities of the convicted foreigners were Turkish, Romanian, Polish, Italian, Serbian, Iraqi and Russian.

The AfD politician Springer calls for reactions from the federal government to the “sharp rise in the number of convictions of foreign offenders”.

Anyone who abuses “hospitality” and commits criminal offenses must “lose their right of residence and be deported”.

In recent years, the black-red coalition has dealt with the problem several times.

Above all, in March 2016 - among other things as a response to the New Year's Eve attacks in Cologne - the law to facilitate the expulsion of delinquent foreigners came into force.

As a result, there were slightly more declarations, they increased significantly from 2015 (3607) to 2016 (5045) and 2017 (7249), but at a very low level.

Since the tightening of the law in 2016, offenders can be expelled as soon as they have been sentenced to imprisonment - regardless of whether the sentence has been suspended or not.

This applies to crimes against life, against physical integrity, against sexual self-determination and attacks on police officers.

Property crimes such as theft can meanwhile lead to expulsion if they are committed with the use of force or by serial offenders.

However, deportation does not always mean that the expelled person actually leaves the country voluntarily or is deported.

It is important to avoid a widespread mix-up here: With an expulsion, the state can withdraw the residence permit of a criminal or dangerous foreigner.

Deportation, on the other hand, means the actual removal of the migrant from the federal territory.

This is only possible if the country of origin cooperates and the deportee does not face any serious dangers such as persecution or the death penalty there.