German police more likely to stop migrants, racism study finds

BERLIN

Migrants in Germany are stopped more frequently by the police in public spaces, according to a new study published on Wednesday.

The study has found that people who are perceived as foreign due to their physical appearance are stopped almost twice as frequently as those who are not.

“Police stops based on physical appearance and not on a person’s conduct constitute inadmissible unequal treatment, and thus violate the prohibition of discrimination enshrined in Germany’s constitution,” the Expert Council on Integration and Migration (SVR) said in its report.

According to a national representative survey conducted by the institution, deciding factor for police checks in public spaces were often the person’s visible physical features, such as a dark complexion or headscarf.

Among the survey respondents, who said that they are often perceived as foreign due to their physical appearance, 8.3% of them reported being stopped by the police without a seemingly credible reason. The figure was only 4.4% among the other respondents.

Around 15,000 people with and without a migration background were surveyed in the period between late November 2021 and early July 2022 for the SVR’s Integration Barometer.