Immigrant crimes: We should talk openly about crime

Crimes committed by immigrants
We should talk openly about crime

By Konstantin Kuhle

Most of the migrants seeking protection will stay in Germany. We should discuss why some of them become delinquent. But the confusion about deportations must also come to an end.

At the end of June, a Somali asylum seeker killed three women in a knife attack in Würzburg. Five other people were injured, some seriously. Such acts trigger social debates about the connection between crime and immigration – and rightly so. According to the latest figures from the Federal Criminal Police Office, crime in the context of immigration is declining. However, because of their brutality, acts like those in Würzburg are likely to permanently disrupt public peace and the citizens’ feeling of security.

That is why we need an open debate about crime and immigration. In doing so, not only the perspective of the perpetrator must be taken into account, but the perspective of the victims must also be included. The police crime statistics only record those acts that became known to the police and were processed by them until they were handed over to the public prosecutor’s office. Criminal offenses that are not reported at all fall by the wayside, possibly because the victim is ashamed or assumes that the perpetrator cannot be identified anyway.

Shedding light on the dark field and obtaining a realistic picture of the security situation in Germany would be an important basis for a fact-based discussion on internal security.

Recognize radicalization earlier

When it comes to the perpetrators, we in Germany don’t know enough. Acts like the one in Würzburg show us once again that our country also accepted later criminals, especially in view of the high influx of people in 2015 and 2016. A large part of the people who came to Germany as protection seekers still stay in Germany.

Young refugees in Leipzig who are completing an apprenticeship.

(Photo: dpa)

These include people who have meanwhile completed an apprenticeship and learned the German language. These include people whose children are going to school in Germany and who may only get to know their parents’ homeland through stories. But among the people who came to Germany at the time, there are also people whose trauma, their susceptibility to radicalization, and sometimes their unwillingness to integrate, can be the source of violence and crime.

Anyone who has become part of our society after five years as a refugee in Germany through work, language acquisition and compliance with the law deserves recognition and support. But if you lack economic or social participation after five years in Germany, you may find yourself on the wrong track. We need to find out more about the development of the people who came to Germany in 2015 and 2016 in order to be able to stop negative developments. The early detection of radicalization as well as the psychological and therapeutic offers for these groups urgently need to be expanded.

Enforce the obligation to leave the country

A functioning migration policy also means that people without a right to stay must leave the country again. Under international law, someone who commits a serious crime can no longer invoke his or her refugee status. If necessary, the obligation to leave the country must be enforced with compulsion. But there is a lack of improvement in deportation practice in Germany.

Most recently, a reform of the Federal Police Act in the Federal Council failed. With the planned new regulation, the Federal Police would have had more powers of their own for deportations. Today these often fail in the confusion of competencies between the local immigration authorities, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees and the Federal Police. Even with the conclusion of functioning readmission agreements, too little happens in this country. States are obliged to take back their own nationals who are expelled from another country. But this requires functioning agreements under international law, for the conclusion of which the federal government is responsible.

Origin is never an excuse for crime or violence. Our legal system is based on the free decision of the individual if it wants to punish someone. The vast majority of people who are currently asylum seekers, beneficiaries of subsidiary protection or recognized refugees in Germany are not liable to prosecution. A large number of these people will stay in Germany permanently.

It is the responsibility of society as a whole and domestic politics to reduce the likelihood of crime and violence. This also includes using smart and forward-looking urban planning to prevent ghettoization and isolation. This includes that the instruments of immigration law are used to their full extent. And that means that worries and uncertainties after acts like the one in Würzburg are discussed openly.

Konstantin Kuhle is the domestic political spokesman and spokesman for the young group of the FDP parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. In weekly rotation with the left-wing politician Katja Kipping, he writes the column “Kipping or Kuhle” on ntv.de.

That was actually the last “Kipping or Kuhle” column before the summer break. It continues on August 14th.

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