On May 11th 2024 the Danish politician and member of the European parliament Anders Vistisen posted on plattform X that almost 60% of all violent crimes in Germany are committed by men with migrant background. After checking the figures it turns out, that the claim by Vistisen is false.
Where the figures come from
The X-post by Danish politician Andres Visiten links to an article by “The National Pulse”, a radical right-wing media outlet that claims to have never made a correction and to always report correctly – although they do not cite any primary sources. In this article, they link to a post on the website “Modernity News”, a website run by British right-wing YouTuber, radio host, and conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson. That post links to an article of the German free-to-air television news channel “n-tv”, in which the primary source of the numbers is mentioned for the first time. The numbers come from the Police crime statistics 2023 of the Federal Criminal Police Office in Germany. A look into the tables shows that the 111.517 out of 190.695 suspects (58.5%) are actually not from the migrants, but from the people with German citizenship. After an inquiry at ntv, the author reports back that he slipped in the line during his research and attributed the wrong figure to foreigners. This error was subsequently corrected by the broadcaster.
What is actually wrong in the claim?
The police crime statistic differentiates between German and non-German suspects. The criterion is nationality. Any migration background is not taken into account, as the voluntary nature of such information means that consistent recording is not guaranteed.
However, Anders Vistisen talks about men with migrant backgrounds in his statement, which is therefore another false designation. The various terms migrant, person with a migration background or foreigner are often lumped together, even though there are significant differences. According to the United Nations a migrant is a person who changes their country of usual residence, irrespective of the reason for migration or legal status. The Federal Statistical Office conducts population surveys in Germany. The population with a migration background includes all people who were either not born with German citizenship themselves or who have at least one parent who was not born with German citizenship. This group comprises 23.9 million people, around a quarter of Germany’s population.
Furthermore it is true that the statistics referenced by Vistisen differentiate by male and female suspects, but it does so separately from the categories of German and non-German suspects. There are no separate categories of German male, German female, non-German male and non-German female suspects.
Interpretation and Background of the Claim
The Claim says that Germany has a problem with violent crime committed by men with a migrant background since Angela Merkel decided to open the borders for refugees in 2015. Millions of Syrians tried to reach Europe fleeing the civil war in their country. 1.83 million irregular border crossings were recorded at the EU’s external borders. In a telephone conversation on September 4, 2015, the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the then Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann came to the conclusion that hundreds of thousands of refugees who wanted to enter Austria and Germany via Hungary would only be prevented from crossing the border illegally by force. To avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, they decided that they would not close their borders. Merkel addressed the German people with the words “Wir schaffen das” (We can do it) to prepare them for the imminent arrival of over one million refugees that year.
Experts
Dr. Salvatore Nicolosi, an assistant professor in International and European migration and refugee Law at Utrecht University, says that one cannot conclude that, because Merkel’s government decided to allow Syrian refugees in, therefore Germany suffers more crime. Nicolosi: “I simply see a policy decision that prioritized the need to make sure that those fleeing a war-torn country such as Syria, are allowed to have a chance to seek protection in Europe.”
Nicolosi argues that migrants can contribute positively to European societies, where aging of the native populations is a major issue. “If they are integrated into the job market, they can contribute to the economy”, he says.
Vistisen implies in his claim that migrants pose a violent threat to Europe. Nicolosi objects to this, saying it is a dangerous narrative. Nicolosi: “The message, in my view, is dangerous, because he [Vistisen, ed.] intends to say that migrants are, in principle, dangerous and criminals.”
“People want to get out of these statistics that crimes are especially committed by migrants. I think it would actually be very biased to conclude that the crime statistics are made up only by migrants”, Nicolosi says.
Vistisen is also known to claim that migrants, especially from Islamic countries, have failed to integrate into European societies. Nicolosi finds this approach too easy, arguing that integration is a two way streak.
“Integration is a very complex topic”, he says, explaining that migrants also need opportunities to integrate. According to him the question is: does the state provide the necessary channels for the necessary means for migrants to integrate? Nicolosi emphasizes that making migrants out to be criminals creates a negative attitude towards them, preventing them from integrating.
Nicolosi: “I think that describing migrants as criminals can block the integration process.”
Arguments
In 2015 998,260 refugees from out of Europe came to Germany. 268% more than in 2014 (372,408). Also in Austria the number of non-European refugees increased by 219% from 39,425 in 2014 to 86,469 in 2015. On the other hand Spain had just an increase of 112% (164,369 to 183,675).
Unlike Germany and Austria, some countries didn’t have the same politics with migrants. For comparison, this article will compare crime in Croatia, Spain and the Netherlands since 2015. Also, the term “violent crime” does not exist in these countries as a specific group of crimes in the statistics so we will present the total number of crimes and the number of crimes committed by foreigners. Also, there are no statistics for crimes committed by immigrants, but there are statistics committed by foreigners. And, by definition of Cambridge dictionary, a foreigner is a person who comes from a different country.
Crime in Croatia
In 2015, the year of migrations, the crime in Croatia increased a little bit compared to 2014. There were 92 more crimes committed by foreigners. And, in the year 2023 for which we have the latest data the number of crimes committed by foreigners is 3419, which is 2358 more than it was in the year 2015. But the total number of crimes in 2023 increased only by 29.
Number of crimes in Croatia:
| TOTAL | Non Croatians | |
| 2014 | 56851 | 969 |
| 2015 | 59233 | 1061 |
| 2023 | 59262 | 3419 |
Percent of foreign criminal offenders:
| 2014 | 969/56851=0,0170445551 | 1,70445551% |
| 2015 | 1061/59233=0,0179123124 | 1,79123124% |
| 2023 | 3419/59262=0,0576929567 | 5,76929567% |
Crime in Spain
According to Organic Law 10/1995, of November 23, of the Spanish Penal Code and with all complementary legislation updated in the official state bulletin (BOE), a violent crime would be framed in any crime that uses force to harm and go against a person, such as robbery, assault or murder; related crimes against property; crimes of a sexual nature; Crimes against public health; crimes against the State.
In Spain, crimes committed by Spaniards have grown by 128,175. In 2015 there were 380,244 and in 2022 there were 508,419. On the other hand, crimes committed by foreigners are minor. In 2015, 91,808 were produced and the figure increased in 2022 by 172,314.
The immigration figure has grown considerably in these seven years compared, even so, crimes committed by foreigners are minor. In 2015, 342,114 came and in 2022, 1,258,894 came.
Crime in The Netherlands
Looking at the graph, we can notice some increase in the number of registered suspects having a foreign passport since the start of the data collection. There has been a noticeable increase in foreign suspects from the year 2014, one year before the European migration crisis, up to the year 2018; from 16.3% to 19.8%. Additionally there is a dip in foreign suspects from 20.2% in 2019 to 19.6% in 2020. And lastly a sharp increase in foreign suspects from 2021 onward; with 19.9% in 2021, 22.7% in 2022 and 24.8% in 2023.
Adding in the data about the percentage of the population having a migration background, we can notice an increase there as well. But compared to the migration data, we cannot see a clear correlation. The percentage of the population that has a migration background increases much more smoothly and steadily.
Even at the point before and after the migration crisis, when there was a noticeable increase in foreign suspects, there was not really any sharper increase in immigration. This corresponds with the reality that the Netherlands was not during that time, like Germany and Austria, taking in extra migrants to relief countries such as Italy and Greece from the great amount of migrants coming in from across the Mediterranean.
Conclusion
In short, the claim that almost 60% of violent crimes in Germany is committed by migrant men, is false because the number in the claim actually refers to Germans and not to people with migrant background. Also, the claim is false because there are no crime statistics for people with a migrant background.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE | Ela Hamzić, Faculty of Political Science (Zagreb, Croatia) | Ramses Kalse, Institute for Media, Utrecht University of Applied Sciences (Utrecht, The Netherlands) | Lena Kümmel, Faculty of Management, Information and Technology, Jade University of Applied Sciences (Wilhelmshaven, Germany) | Aleix Planella Català, Faculty of Communication Sciences, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain) with lecturer coach Alice Düwel from Jade University of Applied Sciences (Wilhelmshaven, Germany)
This factcheck was produced during the Blended Intensive Programme EU Elections Lab at the School of Journalism in Utrecht, The Netherlands
Leave your comments, thoughts and suggestions in the box below. Take note: your response is moderated.
