MENU SIGN IN BECOME A MEMBER DONATE News Opinion Politics Economy Society World Videos Events Newsletters BECOME A MEMBER DONATE HOT TOPICS From the capitals EU bubble Migration Culture war Democracy News Opinion Politics Economy Society World Videos Events Newsletters Economy Energy and climate Finance Industrial policy Trade Politics Bureaucracy Corruption Elections EU bubble From the capitals Society Consumer rights Culture war Democracy Free speech Living in Brussels World Defence Authors Carl Deconinck 2765 articles Antonio O'Mullony 198 articles Luca Steinmann 173 articles Krzysztof Mularczyk 855 articles More Sign in About us Partner with us Events Contact Us HOT TOPICS WHAT'S DRIVING GLOBAL CONVERSATIONS. #AfD #Pedro Sánchez #Donald Trump #Friedrich Merz #Nigel Farage VIDEOS VIEW ALL Video 27 August 2026 Academic freedom under pressure: Nathan Cofnas on Cambridge, DEI & Free Speech Video 27 July 2026 Could China shut down Europe’s power grid? Video 23 July 2026 ‘Europe is keeping Cuba’s Regime alive’ in interview with John Suarez Video 20 July 2026 Inside Iran during the War: Who controls the future? Video 16 July 2026 Why Iran’s overreach may backfire Video 29 June 2026 Is Armenia becoming the next battleground between Europe and Russia? LATEST NEWS VIEW ALL Trade 8 September 2026 EU not up to the task of fighting illicit tobacco trade, auditors find From the capitals 8 September 2026 German police arrest climate activist over power-grid sabotage Culture war 8 September 2026 Iceland summons US ambassador over Trump map showing island under American flag Premium From the capitals 8 September 2026 German state premier Wüst breaks CDU ranks over AfD ban World 8 September 2026 Moscow accuses EU of weaponising human rights against Russia From the capitals 8 September 2026 Thieves steal four Renoir works from French museum in €9 million raid Close Menu × Start typing to search articles... Searching... Try different keywords or check your spelling. ESC to close ↑ ↓ to navigate LATEST • EU not up to the task of fighting illicit tobacco trade, auditors find • German police arrest climate activist over power-grid sabotage • Iceland summons US ambassador over Trump map showing island under American flag • German state premier Wüst breaks CDU ranks over AfD ban • Moscow accuses EU of weaponising human rights against Russia • Thieves steal four Renoir works from French museum in €9 million raid • German police widen hunt for grid saboteur as more devices found at coal plant • Spain’s Interior Ministry admits secret ideological files on dozens of journalists • Meloni says Schengen holds only if member states defend EU borders • Majority of Spaniards fault Sánchez over Ceuta crisis • EU not up to the task of fighting illicit tobacco trade, auditors find • German police arrest climate activist over power-grid sabotage • Iceland summons US ambassador over Trump map showing island under American flag • German state premier Wüst breaks CDU ranks over AfD ban • Moscow accuses EU of weaponising human rights against Russia • Thieves steal four Renoir works from French museum in €9 million raid • German police widen hunt for grid saboteur as more devices found at coal plant • Spain’s Interior Ministry admits secret ideological files on dozens of journalists • Meloni says Schengen holds only if member states defend EU borders • Majority of Spaniards fault Sánchez over Ceuta crisis ✕ Modal Title Generic modal content placeholder. ✕ Partner With Us Contact Brussels Signal Company website Name Email Message Send Message Afghan immigrant Enamullah O. arrives for a court proceeding on October 16, 2025 in Aschaffenburg, Germany. In January 2025 he attacked a kindergarten group in a park with a kitchen knife, killing a child and an intervening bystander and severely wounding two other people. (Photo by Florian Wiegand/Getty Images) News 24 April 2026 Syrians and Afghans in Germany eight times as likely to be suspects of violent crime as locals 3 minutes read Chris Gatt By Chris Gatt Some groups of foreigners in Germany are much more likely to commit violent crimes as Germans themselves, new numbers from the German police show. According to the Police Criminal Statistics (PKS) for 2025 – which were made public on April 20 – 273 out of 100,000 German men became suspects of a violent crime in the past year. The number of suspects per 100,000 people is referred to by the German police. as the “incidence rate”. For Syrian and Afghan nationals this number is eight to nine times higher, with 2,252 suspects per 100,000 Syrians and 2,545 per 100,000 Afghans recorded – according to German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt (Christian Social Union, CSU). Irrespective of their nationality, foreigners are overrepresented in the crime statistics: Some 43 per cent of all suspects of violent offences noted by the PKS did not have German citizenship. This does not include the millions of foreigners who were naturalised in past years. In 2024 alone, almost 300,000 foreigners received German citizenship. For 2025, a record high of 500,000 naturalisations is expected. According to Dobrindt and Federal Criminal Police Office President Holger Münch, part of the reason for the higher criminal incidence among foreigners is that they are, on average, younger and more often male than Germans as a whole. Even accounting for age, though, foreigners are more than twice as likely to be suspected of a crime than Germans in the same age group. For male youths under 18, the incidence rate is 13,811 for foreigners, compared to 6,118 for Germans. For young adults aged 18 to 24, the ratio is 12,297 to 5,762. Police union chairman Manuel Ostermann told newspaper Bild yesterday: “In central areas, crime rates continue to reach intolerably high levels. The PKS figures also show that migration continues to have a massive impact on internal security. “The trend in youth crime is particularly alarming. This calls for early prevention, clear consequences and a greater sense of social responsibility.” Conversely, sociologist Susann Prätor cautioned that foreigners may not be more criminal per se but due to their life circumstances, telling law magazine LTO on April 20: “People of non-German origin are more likely to be affected by poverty and therefore tend to live in socially deprived neighbourhoods. “Crime rates are higher in these areas. However, these are also the areas where the police are more active – meaning that more suspects are likely to be identified. “These people are also more likely to experience parental violence, are subject to norms of masculinity that legitimise violence, and are less likely to attend a grammar school. In the PKS, the distortion caused by differences in reporting behaviour further disadvantages people with a migrant background,” Prätor said. She claimed that if those factors were taken into account, there would be no differences in violent behaviour between the different groups. Key Topics German Federal Criminal Police Office German immigration and crime German police immigrant crime migrants in Germany More like this News 7 May 2026 AfD demands crime statistics change to reflect delinquency of citizens with ‘migrant background’ By Chris Gatt Migration 28 Aug 2026 Foreign suspects in German sex offence cases more than double since 2000 By Brussels Signal News 19 Dec 2024 ‘Peak in hate-motivated crimes directed at LGBTQ people in Berlin’, report finds By Carl Deconinck Premium Opinion 31 Jul 2026 The elites cannot forgive the people for being right By Ralph Schoellhammer The Signal Newsletters Choose between daily briefings or weekly strategic analysis. SUBSCRIBE NOW PREVIEW EDITION Stand with Brussels Signal Help us keep reporting on the stories mainstream media ignore. DONATE NOW HOT TOPICS From the capitals EU bubble Migration Culture war Democracy Topics Economy Politics Society World Newsletters Brussels Calling Signal Horizon Manage My Subscriptions Authors Carl Deconinck Antonio O'Mullony Luca Steinmann Krzysztof Mularczyk Others Sign in About us Partner with us Events Contact Us Follow us on social media Privacy Cookie Policy Corrections and Updates © 2026 Remedia Europe Manage Cookie Consent To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions. Functional Functional Always active The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network. Preferences Preferences The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. Statistics Statistics The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. Marketing Marketing The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes Accept Deny View preferences Save preferences View preferences {title} {title} {title} Manage consent