A new study by Berlin-based pro-migration group Mediendienst Integration (Integration Media Service) shows that there is no link between migrants and crime in Germany.
In the past months many commentators and politicians have claimed that migrants brought an increase in crime to Germany.
The study authored by the Münster criminologist Christian Walburg refutes any link between national origin and crime, DW reported. It is based primarily on statistics from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office.
There was no increase in the number offenses per 100,000 people for the most common types of crimes, Mr Walburg told DW.
The only two types of crimes that had increased were burglaries and pickpocketing, but even those were not committed by refugees who came to Germany last year, Ulf Küch, the head of the criminal police in the central city of Braunschweig, told DW.
Such crimes were committed by people from Eastern Europe and those from the Maghreb, Mr Küch said. He added that in many cases, the people who commit such lower-level thefts have been living in Germany for years.
Most of the refugees who came to Germany in 2015 were fleeing conflict in the Middle East.
A different study by Sandra Bucerius, a criminologist from the University of Alberta, has arrived at even more surprising results.
“The studies in the international arena are clear,” Ms Bucerius told DW. “Clear in the sense that immigration tends to reduce national crime rates and not raise them.”
The scholar has for years been examining the relationship between migration in crime in Canada.