Of the 44,232 prisoners in Germany, 24,259 are foreigners, according to data obtained from the German Federal Ministry of Justice.
That equals more than 50 percent, while the proportion of foreigners in the population is currently at 15 percent. The data, which shows the prisoner count as of March 31, 2023, was obtained after a written request from Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP Leif Erik-Holm. The Federal Statistical Office listed 44,232 prisoners on the same date in all of Germany.
German newspaper Junge Freiheit, which first reported on the data, notes that the Federal Statistical Office and the Ministry of Justice have wildly different figures for the number of foreigners in German prisons. The Federal Statistical Office lists only 15,559 foreign prisoners, while the justice ministry lists 24,259. The paper notes that it is unclear why there is such a vast difference between the two figures.
One possible explanation is that those people with dual nationality, for example, if they have both a Turkish and German passport, are listed simply as “German” in the crime statistics. However, the justice ministry may have released their data taking this difference into account and listed these prisoners as “foreigners” instead, which would account for the greater total of foreign prison offenders.
However, the prisoner data greatly aligns with the crime statistics. In 2023, interior ministry data shows that 6 in 10 violent crimes were committed by foreigners in Germany. Violent crimes also reached record levels in 2023 in many categories, such as assault, and the share of foreign offenders reached a record high as well for all crimes, equaling 41 percent.
AfD MP Holm criticized the ruling left-liberal coalition in Germany, saying the data reveals their failed migration policy.
“Instead of providing full care for criminal foreigners at taxpayers’ expense, the deportation offensive announced by Scholz must finally be put into practice,” he said.
In addition, Germany “finally needs a rigid migration policy.” He said that mass immigration has not solved Germany’s problems but instead created dozens of new ones. “Nobody has anything against real skilled workers from abroad, but uncontrolled immigration is destroying the foundations of our society,” he added.
Similar data has been produced in countries like Austria and Switzerland. In Switzerland, two-thirds of all prisoners are foreigners. In Austria, this number is 50 percent.
