The number of crimes recorded in Germany continues to decline.
In 2021, the police registered a good five million crimes, 4.9 percent fewer than in the previous year.
Since 2017, the number of crimes detected has been falling, in 2016 the number of cases was still over six million.
"We are a very safe country and a strong constitutional state," said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) on Tuesday.
The investment in more staff would have paid off.
Helen Bubrowski
Political correspondent in Berlin.
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In the press conference, Faeser praised the fact that the clear-up rate had risen again.
Last year it reached a new high of 58.7 percent.
The Federal Criminal Police Office partly explained the higher rate with the decrease in theft cases by more than ten percent.
Thefts are solved less often than other crimes.
In total, the police identified almost two million suspects in 2021, three quarters of them were male.
The Federal Minister of the Interior also referred to negative developments.
She spoke of the “appalling extent” of child sexual abuse.
The number of cases of abuse rose by 6.3 percent to 15,507 cases.
The number of cases in the distribution of child pornography has more than doubled compared to the previous year (plus 108.8 percent).
The American organization National Center of Missing and Exploited Children has recently reported many cases of crimes with crime scenes in Germany to the German authorities.
Because the storage of IP addresses by telecommunications providers is not permitted in this country, investigators are often unable to determine the identity of the perpetrators.
Another reason for the explosion in numbers is that it is common among young people to share child pornography images via group chats.
Young people often do not know that this is forbidden.
The protection of children has the highest priority, said Faeser.
"We have to stop this development." She wants to make the investigators' work easier by using artificial intelligence to evaluate the data carriers.
Fewer burglaries
The number of registered violent crimes fell by 6.8 percent to 164,646 cases compared to the previous year.
About four out of five violent crimes were solved.
Knife attacks were recorded in the statistics for the first time.
In 2021, a knife was used or used as a threat in 6.6 percent of violent crimes.
The pandemic is not a good time for burglars because many people are working from home.
The number of burglaries fell by 27.7 percent to 54,236 cases.
There had already been a decline in 2020.
In contrast, crime in the cyber area has increased: there were 146,000 cases, an increase of more than twelve percent.
Holger Münch, President of the Federal Criminal Police Office, spoke of a "shift from an analogue bright field to a digital dark field" and called for the "digital change in police work" to be promoted.