About 16% of the total population of foreigners accounted for 34% of suspects in crimes in Germany

 

 
The closest thing to an official figure is the number of French inmates who registered for Ramadan – 18,300 out of a total prison population of 67,700, or 27%, back in 2013 according to Agence France Presse.A Brookings Institution report says that “Muslims are greatly overrepresented in prisons and within the eighteen- to twenty-four–year-old age group in particular: they make up only 8.5 percent of that age population in France, yet 39.9 percent of all prisoners in the cohort.”

This, obviously, is not to suggest that France doesn’t have a serious problem with integrating Muslim men (in England and Wales, 15% of the prison population is Muslim from a total population of 5%). This is pertinent to Muslims since 46 per cent of them live in the 10% most deprived local authority districts in Britain today. 

Labour MP David Lammy last week revealed the results of an independent review into the treatment of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals in the criminal justice system. One of the most shocking findings was that Muslims account for 15 per cent of Britain’s prisoners – a 50 per cent increase since ten years ago – despite being under 5 per cent of its population.

The proportion of foreign-born inmates in German prisons is now at a record high, according to a new survey of the justice ministries in Germany's 16 federal states. In Berlin and Hamburg, for example, more than 50% of inmates are now from abroad, according to the report, which also revealed a spike in the number of Islamists in the German prison system.

The data, compiled by the newspaper Rheinische Post, shows that the surge of foreign-born inmates began in 2015, when Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed into Germany more than a million mostly unvetted migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Ahead of the presentation of the 2025 figures for crime in Germany by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Susann Prätor has shared her thoughts on the issue of nationality and statistics. She is a sociologist, psychologist and legal scholar. Her work as an expert on crime draws on these diverse perspectives.

More than a third of all suspects are not German citizens. About 16% of the total population of Germany don't have German citizenship, yet they accounted for roughly 34% of suspects in crimes as diverse as theft, burglary and violent crimes. In 2024, there was a 7.5% increase in violent crime involving suspects with non-German nationality. But experts point out that this may be due to a rise in reporting rather than actual incidents.