Ahead of the Federal Criminal Police Office’s (BKA) 2025 crime figures, Susann Prätor — sociologist, psychologist and legal scholar at Lower Saxony’s police academy — warns that simple nationality comparisons in crime statistics can mislead. Her interdisciplinary work shows why numbers need context before assigning blame.
Raw figures already raise questions: more than a third of suspects recorded by police are non-German. Non-citizens make up roughly 16% of Germany’s population but account for about 34% of suspects across offences from theft and burglary to violent crimes. Yet Prätor emphasises that such ratios are often like comparing apples and oranges.
Demographics matter. Age and gender are central drivers of offending worldwide: young men are disproportionately represented among suspects regardless of ethnicity. Because non-German residents in Germany are, on average, considerably younger than the native population, a higher share of suspects among non-citizens can reflect demographic structure rather than a causal link to nationality.
Reporting bias also distorts the picture. Research shows people perceived as foreign are more likely to be reported to police. A 2024 study by the Criminological Institute of Lower Saxony found non-Germans were reported to authorities nearly three times as often as Germans — a gap that inflates official suspect counts for non-citizens.
Studies of unreported crime provide further context. Random victimisation and self-report surveys reveal incidents that never reach police statistics and help explore underlying causes by asking victims and offenders directly. Prätor argues these methods produce a more nuanced understanding than relying on officially recorded offences alone.
Context on youth crime points to social and structural factors: immigrants’ living conditions often differ from those of native Germans. Contributing elements cited in research include domestic instability, lower educational attainment, involvement with criminal peer groups and cultural norms around masculinity — factors that correlate with offending risk, independent of nationality.
A nationality breakdown illustrates complexity rather than a simple pattern. In 2024 just under 13% of suspects were recorded as Ukrainian, while Ukrainian refugees accounted for 35.7% of the refugee population in Germany. Part of that disparity reflects demographics: about 63% of adult Ukrainian refugees are women, reducing their representation in the high-risk young-male cohort. By contrast, people from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Georgia made up roughly 3% of suspects but less than 1% of registered refugees; asylum seekers from parts of North Africa are heavily male (around 74–82%), which corresponds with higher shares among suspects.
Syria is the second-largest refugee source, making up about one-fifth of the refugee population. Roughly 900,000 Syrians live in Germany, and about 115,000 were identified as suspects in 2024. Many Syrian asylum seekers are young men, a demographic pattern linked to elevated offending rates in general.
Official figures also show a 7.5% rise in violent crime involving non-German suspects in 2024, but experts caution this may reflect increased reporting or changing demographics rather than a simple uptick in offending. Importantly, many non-German nationals are also victims of violent crime.
Prätor’s message is clear: nationality alone is a blunt and often misleading lens. Policymakers, journalists and the public should interpret crime statistics with attention to age, gender, reporting behaviour and social context, and include evidence from victimisation and self-report studies before drawing conclusions about migrants and crime.