Statistics vs. Populists: Migrant Does Not Mean Criminal
Last year, the German expression Willkommenskultur, meaning 'culture of hospitality', became one of the most significant in the context of the powerful wave of refugees arriving in Germany. But literally overnight, the fervor of supporters of this culture subsided: a series of sexual assaults on New Year's Eve at the Cologne train station, committed primarily by people from North Africa, caused shock and outrage in Germany.
Right-wing populists were quick to exploit this, for example, the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Frauke Petry. She immediately called the events in Cologne a 'terrifying consequence of the catastrophic migration policy' of the German government.
After what happened on New Year's Eve, doubts among Germans about the ability to integrate refugees, especially from Muslim countries, began to grow. The incident in Cologne led to increasing discussion of the question of whether the crime rate in the country is rising along with the number of refugees and migrants.
The Berlin publication Mediendienst Integration presented an expert analysis that clearly shows there is no connection between origin and criminal activity. The expert was criminologist Christian Walburg, who analyzed crime statistics in Germany and compared them with migration data. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Walburg emphasizes that in most categories of criminal offenses, no increase in crime in Germany per 100,000 inhabitants has been established. The criminologist highlights only two areas where growth is indeed observed: pickpocketing and home burglaries.
However, these crimes are not committed by refugees at all, Ulf Küch points out. The head of the criminal police in Braunschweig knows what he is talking about. Küch identifies two groups of perpetrators: 'First, newcomers from Eastern Europe, and second, those who arrived here from the Maghreb countries. Neither group belongs to the main mass of refugees who came to Germany last year,' Küch explains. According to him, these criminals have been living in Germany for many years.
Sandra Bucerius came to even more surprising conclusions. The criminology specialist has lived and worked in Canada for many years, where the relationship between migration and crime is studied. 'International studies say one thing,' Bucerius emphasizes in an interview with Deutsche Welle, 'that overall immigration lowers the national crime rate rather than raising it.'
At the same time, Bucerius notes a rise in crime among second-generation migrants. She cites insufficient social integration as a particularly significant risk factor. In countries with a traditionally high percentage of immigrants, these processes are more successful than in Europe, where a large number of migrants is not taken for granted. 'Along with a "culture of hospitality," we also need — even if it sounds a bit exaggerated — a "structure of hospitality,"' Bucerius believes.
Christian Walburg confirms these findings with specific figures: 'Adult immigrants who have access to the labor market or a prospect of obtaining it rarely come to the attention of the police.' Therefore, the criminologist from Münster calls for a political solution for those who have not received official refugee status, but only a reprieve from deportation. They do not get the opportunity to attend free language courses, do not maintain contact with society, their access to the labor market is usually limited, and each job must be approved by the authorities. 'Because of their uncertain legal status, they are most at risk of becoming criminals,' Walburg concludes.
In one of the documents of the Federal Criminal Police Office under the title 'Crime in the Context of Immigration,' similar conclusions are reached: despite the huge number of refugees in Germany, the number of crimes committed by migrants fell by 18 percent from January to May 2016.
At the same time, the criminal police office expresses concern about the rise in crimes against refugees themselves. In dry bureaucratic language, the document states: 'The number of crimes against the construction or already built refugee hostels, as well as against (presumed) asylum seekers, committed for personal motives or on the basis of xenophobia, remained at a high level in the first quarter of 2016.'