Alice Weidel, chairwoman of the right wing party AfD, claimed 789 cases of gang rape for 2022 in an interview with the German newsmedia “Welt”, aiming to argue the necessity of a deportation initiative. After further investigation this statement, given after a session of the German Bundestag regarding migration on November 8th, 2023, turned out to be uncheckable although it is based on police crime statistics.
Where does the number come from?
In the course of its reply to one of many inquiries by the political party AfD, the German federal government itself provided information about cases of sexual offenses. The AfD’s request form May 2023 posed eleven questions in total that centered mainly around the development of gang rapes, the proportionality of non-German offenders, and their nationalities.
The Government’s reply begins with a disclaimer: ‘gang rape’ is not a legal term within the code of law, making a special evaluation of the police crime statistics necessary. Thus, consulting the numbers of rape cases in combination with the filter “suspect acting alone: No” resulted in the overall case number of 789 provided.
However, as stated in the reply, this number includes all sexual offenses under the umbrella § 177 StGB “Sexual Assault; Sexual Coercion; Rape”, not only those that are in accordance with the definition of rape under § 177 Abs.6 Nr.1 StGB. Additionally, the reply states the possibility of multiple offenders and/or victims per case, further blurring the desired answer of the inquirers.
What Do Police Crime Statistics Really Declare?
The Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik (PKS) includes all crimes recorded by police, such as reported offenses that make up the vast majority of filed misconduct. The PKS does not include traffic violations, financial crimes or state security offenses.
The PKS is an outgoing statistical report; as such it lists all cases that have been closed by police and forwarded to the public prosecution in the respective year. Consequently, the report illustrates the evidence of police work more than it accurately displays crime per annum. As many investigations span across time, the PKS doesn’t provide the number of offenses actually occurring in a specific year but merely when and if
they were solved.
Prof. Dr. Gina Rosa Wollinger, sociologist and criminologist with a professorship for criminology at the University of Police and Public Administration North Rhine-Westphalia, explains what happens next: “Maybe the prosecution stops proceedings because there isn’t enough evidence, because there is no suspect, maybe charges or a penalty order are filed. The prosecution has many options on how to deal with a case. In criminology one speaks of a ‘funnel’ where many cases are reported but far fewer go to trial.”
One component of prosecutorial proceedings is the assessment of crime in the context of the code of law. If the prosecution decides to prosecute a case that differs in its classification from that of the police, there is no correction of the PKS.
While it seems obvious to compare the PKS with the convictions, Wollinger highlights further hurdles: “The PKS and the convictions statistics cannot be compared. In court it is not stated how many cases were tried but how many people were convicted. However, these convictions can include various cases, since one person can be on trial for a multitude of offenses.”
The PKS’s Distortion Factors
The PKS’s indication of the suspects nationality promises more clarity regarding AfD’s inquiry. Two categories show suspects are either German or non-German. However, if someone has multiple citizenships with one of them being German, the person is counted as German.
“The question at hand is if non-German suspects in the PKS are disproportionately represented compared to their share in society. But to know what that share is can be tricky, as not all non-German suspects belong to the resident population. Some criminals enter the country to commit crimes and then leave, other offenses happen at the hands of tourists”, Wollinger shares.
Besides the split of the resident population, she also recounts other distortion factors within the PKS: “The police’s control activity is crucial for who enters the statistics as a suspect”. A change in resource management within police departments can affect what areas or offenses are more likely to stand out in the statistics compared to years before.
Wollinger also provides insight into how victims influence who enters the PKS as an offender: “We know that reporting behavior is increased when the offender is perceived as alien to the victim.” A study clarifies which determining factors lead to someone reporting a sexual offense they’ve fallen victim to. Among other things, it was found that the closer the relationship between victim and perpetrator, the lower the likelihood of a report, further contributing to the high dark figure of unreported sexual offenses.
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Conclusion
Alice Weidel’s claim that “we had 789 gang rapes” in 2022 turns out to be uncheckable for multiple reasons. The evaluation of the Police Crime Statistics included all jointly committed sexual offenses, not only those in which both offenders committed rape. The PKS provides the number of completed investigations of the respective year, without context of following convictions. Different judicial classifications of offenses by police and prosecution are not retroactively accommodated in the PKS, resulting in an inexact estimate rather than a reliable number of cases. The PKS can therefore only provide the number of suspects, not of convicted offenders. The different recording periods of the police and prosecution make an assessment of the actual number of offenses unrealistic. As investigations may take longer, an offense can appear in the PKS in one year even though the crime took place years prior. Distortion factors like the frequency and location of police checks, shifts in the use of police resources, and reporting behavior influence the number of listed offenses without reflecting an actual increase or decrease in crime.
Read more about the issue of crime and migration in our Blogpost.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Lea Strenge and Luisa Kuhl, Jade Univefsity of Applied Sciences Wilhelmshaven, Germany
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