It has been about two weeks since the knife attack in Mannheim in which a police officer lost his life. The suspect is an Afghan who has been living in Germany for several years. Is there a connection between a migration background and crime? Criminologist Dirk Baier explains how important it is to look closely.
FOCUS online: Mr. Baier, there have been several knife attacks in Germany in recent weeks. In Saarbrücken, Mannheim and most recently on Friday in Wolmirstedt in Saxony-Anhalt. Do we have a problem with knife violence?
Dirk Baier: We are certainly sensitized to this form of violence. Perhaps also because knife attacks make it into the news so quickly. The knife is a special weapon: anyone who attacks others with it can quickly injure them seriously – even if they do not deliberately use the knife to kill someone.
Let’s look at the numbers.
Baier: From a scientific perspective, it must be said that the data is incomplete. Knife attacks have only been recorded in the police crime statistics since 2021. Some time will have to pass before the figures are reliable. However, the information available shows an increase in knife violence in Germany, for example in cases of assault or robberies.
But the data is not yet reliable?
Baier: Uniformity in data collection is extremely important in such surveys. Someone in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania should understand the term “knife crime” in the same way as someone in Baden-Württemberg. This harmonization is not yet fully complete.
Are there any other points to consider when interpreting the numbers?
Baier: Yes, definitely. In order for knife attacks to appear in the statistics, they have to be reported. It may be that there is no more knife violence than in previous years – but that such attacks are being reported to the police more and more frequently. We know from research that there is a dark figure for serious bodily harm. Only a little more than half of the crimes are reported. This could also be the case with knife attacks.
Could, but doesn’t have to.
Baier: Yes. But one should at least take the reporting aspect into account when talking about crime statistics.
What is your overall impression?
Baier: I would say that knife crime has actually increased in Germany. We have found in survey studies that men are carrying knives more and more often. This is an indication alongside the police statistics. So my conclusion is: We have a growing knife problem – not an epidemic, but the issue deserves attention.
Let us think of Brokstedt, where a refugee stabbed a couple to death on a train in 2022. Or Mannheim around two weeks ago. An Afghan, who according to media reports has been living in Germany since 2013, stabbed several people in the market square. In both cases, the stabbers were immigrants.
Baier: My first reaction is that these are isolated cases. Isolated cases with months between them. The media and politicians try to identify commonalities. This usually boils down to the perpetrator’s foreign origin. But one could also come to another similarity: namely that we are dealing with men in both cases.
Does gender play an important role in knife attacks?
Baier: When we talk about knife crime, that is the most common thing they have in common. In nine out of ten cases, the attackers are men, and often of German nationality. I think we quickly look at the origin, but we could also focus on other, actually much more important points.
Characteristics such as: gender, mental health problems, environment, education. In all our analyses, we have not found any ethnic or religious group in which the majority are criminals or where knives are practically standard equipment.
This means that the migrant background is often the first thing that is noticed – but the causes of criminal behaviour lie deeper.
Baier: Exactly. We criminologists are often accused of ignoring the connection between immigrant status and crime. That is wrong. Of course, you can see this connection in the statistics – the crime rate among foreigners is about twice as high as among Germans. But we cannot stop at the immigrant background when interpreting the data. Differentiation is absolutely necessary.
What do you mean?
Baier: The very general statement that violent crime is something imported does not help us. As I said, factors such as upbringing, environment and gender play a role in the development of crime. If we differentiate, we see that the main factor is not the foreigner status. It is actually always socialization experiences that go hand in hand with crime.
Dirk Baier is a German criminologist. Since 2015 he has headed the Institute for Delinquency and Crime Prevention at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. His research focuses on juvenile delinquency, the connections between violence, religion and extremism, and domestic violence.
That sounds very theoretical. There are certainly concrete examples of such experiences.
Baier: Of course. Has anyone experienced violence? Trauma, for example as a result of fleeing? Is a person unemployed or living in precarious conditions? Foreigners are more likely to meet these criteria than Germans; on average, they have a poorer socioeconomic status. But that alone is not enough to explain their higher crime rate. Cultural beliefs, such as masculine norms that legitimize violence, also play a role. And the greater willingness to report crimes involving “foreigners.”
If you had to sum it up: Why do people become criminals?
Baier: As a criminologist, I think that people become criminals when they move in criminal environments, that is, in environments that represent pro-criminal attitudes: for example, that one can use violence to get what is one’s due; in environments in which pro-criminal upbringing prevails, in other words, norms of masculinity that legitimize violence are conveyed.
Right-wing populists have discovered the so-called “knife migrant” as a figure of fear. This is what scientist Thomas Hestermann told “Deutsche Welle” last year.
Baier: He’s not entirely wrong.
In your opinion, how did this prejudice come about?
Baier: I think it has to do with the fact that several things happened at the same time. We probably all remember the refugee crisis in 2015. In a survey conducted across Lower Saxony, my colleagues and I independently found that young people have been carrying knives more frequently since then. Such information is now being linked together, especially by right-wing parties. They plant a certain image in the minds of citizens.
Do the two really have absolutely nothing to do with each other?
Baier: Ultimately, that cannot be clearly clarified. But since crime phenomena never have just one single cause, one cannot simply claim that immigration is solely to blame when it comes to the knife issue.
You sound like there are even more reasons for the image of the “knife migrant”.
Baier: I think the media also have their share in such prejudices. They report intensively for days on end about acts like the one in Mannheim, which are undoubtedly terrible. Nevertheless, knife attacks are also common among Germans. Just a few days ago there was a fatal stabbing in Frankfurt, the suspect and the victim are both German citizens. This was reported much less than the case in Mannheim.
Immigration, the “knife fashion” among young people, the linking of both issues by right-wing parties, media coverage – all of this has, in my opinion, contributed to the image of the “knife migrant”.
Back to Mannheim: The investigators assume an Islamist motive. How often do crimes committed for religious or ideological reasons occur in Germany?
Baier: You can read that in the report of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The last figures we currently have are from 2022. At that time, there were 43 religiously or ideologically motivated acts of violence. It is interesting that the figure is low compared to other fields. In the area of right-wing extremist motivated acts, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution registered a total of 1,016 acts of violence for 2022, and in the area of left-wing extremist motivated acts, the figure was 602.
That is a clear difference.
Baier: That’s right. I think that active right-wing and left-wing extremism make it into the press less often than Islamist acts of violence. Probably because Islamism is often accompanied by the question of a threat to German society. Keyword: Caliphate.
After knife attacks like those in Mannheim and Wolmirstedt, one can quickly become afraid of becoming a victim of a capital crime oneself.
Baier: Of course, such events are upsetting. Many people adjust their behavior accordingly, for example, they are less likely to be alone or to be out in the dark. It is interesting that most of them have no personal experience of serious violent crime. Murder, manslaughter, serious robbery – many people usually only know these things from the “Tatort” or the news.
And yet they are afraid of experiencing something like that themselves.
Baier: Exactly. An example: In one of our population surveys in Switzerland, three percent of the survey participants said they were afraid of becoming the victim of a completed homicide in the next 12 months. The real probability is around zero percent. It’s similar in Germany.
Why are reality and perception so far apart?
Baier: Again, it’s about the image that politics, the media and social networks convey to us. Fear can be useful in such circles. Because: those who are afraid are more likely to vote for parties that say: we will provide more security, we will increase the number of police.
More educational work would therefore be important.
Baier: Exactly. Germany is a very safe country, but many people are not aware of it. We should better classify the things that happen. Something like the knife attack in Mannheim happens on average once a year. It is very singular. There is no connection to other acts. We should be careful with parallels. If there were a pattern behind it, we would have hundreds of such acts of violence every day.
You have been heading the Institute for Delinquency and Crime Prevention at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences since 2015. What are your most important findings when it comes to preventing crime?
Baier: With everything we know about violence prevention, the sooner the better. Children should learn things like empathy, non-violence and self-reflection as early as possible.
There are certainly also measures to combat crime among migrants.
Baier: We could improve educational opportunities, psychological help and the linguistic integration of refugees and other immigrants. The issue of crime among immigrants can definitely be addressed. As I said: the environment, upbringing and traumatic experiences play a central role in whether someone commits a crime. This is exactly where we can counteract it.
What does society as a whole look like?
Baier: Crime is not just a concern for the police and politicians. We should not look away when we see abuses. If, for example, two young people are fighting, we should intervene or at least call the police and not do nothing. Keyword: civil courage. We all need to work in the area of prevention.
How do you rate the harshness and “locking away” of offenders? Does this lead to improvement?
Baier: First of all, I am not against prison sentences, quite the opposite. But we need to improve the support we provide to criminals. Most of them return to society at some point. If you lock them away for years, don’t look after them and let them spend most of their time with people like them, how is that supposed to change their personality?
That’s why we need to think about how we can better support criminals, for example by offering them therapy and creating sufficient opportunities for resocialization. This is the only way we can prevent them from becoming criminals again.
