WIt is not always easy to say how crime is going in Germany. Up until now, anyone who wanted to get an idea of crime was primarily dependent on the police crime statistics (PKS), which only list reported crimes. The knowledge about the weaknesses of these figures is as old as the statistics themselves. In parts, the PKS, no matter how productive it is, is no more than a working documentation of the police: Where more officers swarm out to bust drug dealers, there are supposedly also in the end more drug crime.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser is now systematically illuminating the dark field with a new study. That’s right, not to say overdue. You have to ask yourself why nobody else came up with this idea before the social democrat. For example, one of the Union men among their predecessors, who like to claim special expertise in this field.
Shameful discussion
The new figures should help the police to get a better picture of the situation, which is a prerequisite for using (scarce) resources properly. But no one should now claim that all the findings that are found between the many numbers are as new as the statistics themselves. It is well known that crime is progressing faster than the protection of the population, especially in the digital sphere.
It’s not just about tapped credit card data. When presenting the study, Faeser pointed out what is also often connected with cybercrime: 49 children in Germany are victims of sexualised violence every day. Once again, the minister took the opportunity to call for data retention. Whatever your opinion on this topic, it is shameful how long this discussion has dragged on. All knowledge about what criminals are doing in the depths of the Internet is of no use if politicians cannot agree on how to counteract it.
