“The fuse has become shorter”
Violent crime is higher than it has been in 15 years
April 6, 2024, 10:39 a.m
According to a report, the police registered significantly more crimes last year. “Dangerous and serious bodily harm” reached a new high. “Conflicts are resolved more quickly with fists than with words,” commented North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Reul on the report.
The number of crimes in Germany rose by 5.5 percent to 5.94 million last year. This emerges from the police crime statistics for 2023, which “Welt am Sonntag” quoted in advance and which Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to present on Tuesday. Violent crime reached its highest level in 15 years at around 215,00 cases.
According to the report, violent crime increased by 8.6 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year. One main reason is that “dangerous and serious bodily harm” rose by 6.8 percent to 154,541 cases – the highest number of cases to date, the “Welt am Sonntag” quoted the statistics. “Intentional simple bodily harm” also increased to 429,157 cases, an increase of 7.4 percent. The previous high was registered in 2016 with 406,038 cases.
“Conflicts are resolved more quickly with fists instead of words. The fuse has become shorter,” North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul told the newspaper. Wars and crises would have further fueled the mood. “It’s like a big powder keg.”
No longer just Corona catch-up effects
Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Daniela Behrens told the newspaper: “It can be assumed that the increase in violent crime can no longer be explained solely by catch-up effects after the corona pandemic.” Plausible reasons include inflation, increased mobility after the pandemic and migration movements. According to “WamS”, the number of crimes was 9.3 percent higher than in 2019, the year before the corona pandemic.
When it comes to violent crime, the number of robberies increased by around 17 percent to 44,857, the number of knife attacks rose by almost 10 percent to 8,951. According to the report, however, there was a slight increase of 2 percent in murder, manslaughter and killing on demand, there were a total of 2282 cases. The number of particularly serious cases of rape, sexual assault and sexual assault rose by 2.4 percent to 12,186 cases.
The number of suspects rose compared to the previous year by 7.3 percent to 2.246 million. Of these, 923,269 did not have a German passport, or around 41 percent. According to the report, the increase in suspects without a German passport was almost 18 percent. Of these, 402,514 were immigrants, an increase of 29.8 percent. According to the report, the clearance rate for all crimes recorded was 58.4 percent.