Afghan and Syrian nationals are significantly overrepresented among suspects of violent crimes in Germany, according to official statistics.
This week, the Bild newspaper revealed some of the data from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) report
“Crime in the Context of Immigration” demonstrating that some foreign groups were much more likely to be suspected of serious crimes than German nationals.
When looking at violent crimes, there was a rate of 163 suspects per 100,000 Germans in 2024. In contrast, the rate for Afghan nationals stood at 1,722 suspects per 100,000 inhabitants. Meanwhile, the rate for Syrian nationals was 1,740 suspects per 100,000 inhabitants, or more than ten times the rate of German citizens.
According to the paper, a similar trend was born out in other categories of crime, including sexual offences or drug crimes, both of which are also led by Syrians and Afghans.
Separate figures revealed last month that foreigners now account for over 40 per cent of all suspected criminals in Germany last year. This jumped to over 43 per cent when only looking at violent crimes, recorded in the Police Crime Statistics 2024 (PKS 2024).
According to the figures, migrants from Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, Romania, and Ukraine accounted for the most suspected criminals.
The overrepresentation of migrants in crime was also backed up by the number of convictions, which foreign nationals accounted for 38.9 per cent in 2023. Additionally, as of June of this year, 45 per cent of all prisoners were foreign nationals.
The true impact of immigration on crime levels in Germany may be much higher, however, given that the statistics do not include migrants who obtained citizenship or those with a “migration background”, meaning that at least one parent was born abroad.
Further statistics released in October following Freedom of Information requests from the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party found that migrants had been involved in at least 2,802,915 criminal cases between 2015 and 2024.
The government in Berlin has said that it plans on restarting deportations to both Afghanistan and Syria now that the conflicts in both nations are over. However, there has yet to be any large scale repatriation efforts.