Police registered 5.5M crimes in Germany last year: Interior minister

Around 5.5 million crimes were reported to the police last year, indicating a decrease of 5.6% compared to 2024, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Monday.

There has been a “slight decline” in crime after years of increases, which may provide “a chance that crime will decline in the long term,” Dobrindt told journalists in Berlin.

The area of ​​violent crime “also shows a slight decline of 2.3%. On average, we are witnessing 580 violent crimes a day,” the minister added.

Law enforcement officials recorded an increase in offenses, including social welfare benefit fraud (up 11.5%), murder, manslaughter, and assisted suicide (up 6.5%), as well as rape, sexual coercion, and aggravated sexual assault resulting in death (up 8.5%), according to the annual police crime statistics report.

Police officers had to investigate fewer cases of robbery, extortion, and attacks on motorists (down 7.1%), while drug offenses, as recorded in the police crime statistics report, decreased by 27.7%.

Meanwhile, the number of children involved in violent crimes rose by 3.3%, ​​to approximately 14,200 suspects. However, this increase was less pronounced than the previous year (11.3%).