Germany has recorded its largest drop in crime for 25 years, with police leaders saying it was linked to a fall in the number of asylum seekers.
In total 5.76million crimes were recorded by police in 2017, which is a 9.6 per cent drop from the number recorded in 2016.
Oliver Malchow, leader of the GdP police union, told newspaper Welt Am Sonntag that ‘a good part’ of the fall was due to a decrease in the number of asylum seekers.
German police recorded a 9.6 per cent drop in crime between 2016 and 2017, the largest fall for 25 years with burglaries and pick-pocketing declining the most
Malchow warned against ‘premature conclusions on the security situation’ but admitted there has not been such a large decline since pan-German crime statistics began being collected in 1993.
Germany recorded 220,000 asylum applications in 2017, which came after 280,000 applications in 2016.
Both figures are significantly lower than the 890,000 applications received in 2015, when Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to migrants arriving in Europe.
While the fall covered almost all categories of crime, the largest decreases came in burglaries and pick-pocketing, which were both down 23 per cent.
Oliver Malchow, leader of the GdP police union, said a ‘good part’ of the decrease was due to a fall in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Germany (file image)
Police figures show the number of non-German suspects fell by almost 23 per cent, to 735,000, of which around 30,000 were immigrants.
Around a third of all crimes recorded in 2017 were theft-related, according to Welt, which published the figures ahead of their official publication next month.
Overall theft dropped by almost 12 per cent, including a fall in the numbers of cars and bikes stolen, and a decrease in shoplifting.
Violent crime also decreased by 2.4 per cent, though the number of murders rose by 3.2 per cent to 785 cases.
Drug offenses also rose by almost 10 per cent while child pornography saw a significant increase of 14.5 per cent, to 6,512 cases.