Why do refugees become criminals?
Refugees in Germany are proportionately more often suspects in violent crime cases than their numbers would suggest. This is among other things because the refugees are primarily young men living in close quarters, the authors of a study commissioned by the federal government explain. Commentators also pin the blame on politicians.
What's lacking is an immigration law
For Der Tagesspiegel the study exposes all that's wrong with Germany's migration policy:
“Since we lack an immigration law, those who are disparagingly referred to as economic refugees also often take the asylum system path. While that provides them with social benefits and a roof over their head, it offers them no long-term perspectives - to say nothing of sympathy points among the German population. Frustration and aggression are the result. The step to violence is clearly not far off, particularly among young men from strongly patriarchal cultures. ... No one has a panacea for the crisis. However, a regulated labour migration system that includes training possibilities for young people of the kind the chancellor has also talked of certainly points in the right direction.”
Too many obstacles to integration
The number of crimes illustrates how refugee counselling and crime prevention have been neglected, the Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
“That's exactly what was lacking after the big refugee wave in 2015 and 2016. Despite thousands of volunteers, new social pedagogues and integration facilitators in the towns and cities, the more than one million refugees who entered the country back then put too great a strain on the authorities, and many municipalities lacked adequate counselling and prevention. In some cases that couldn't have been organised with the best will in the world, for example because not enough personnel could be recruited for these tasks. This is now taking its toll. The crime rate also highlights the limits of our ability to integrate the newcomers.”