Status: 06.12.2022 2:00 p.m
From 2023 there will no longer be any money from the federal government for burglar-proof doors and windows. The crimes are increasing again significantly, as surveys by Report Mainz under the state criminal police offices.
In the end, it was the window in the children’s room that the perpetrator used to climb into the apartment. When the family returned two and a half hours later, everything had already happened. The cupboards opened, the jewelry stolen. The perpetrator left shoeprints in the snow. According to the police, this happened last Monday in a district of Hagen in North Rhine-Westphalia. It’s one of the many crimes investigators are dealing with these days.
Home burglaries are on the rise for the first time in six years. This emerges from a query that ARD-political magazine Report Mainz carried out under the State Criminal Police Offices. The officials have not yet completed their statistics, but the trend is clearly upwards almost everywhere. Some authorities even speak of increases of more than 30 percent in the first half of 2022 compared to 2021, for example in Hamburg, Bremen or Lower Saxony. Significant growth is also expected for the second half of the year.
In the two years of the pandemic, the number of burglaries had fallen significantly. “People often worked from home, which meant an increased risk of discovery for a burglar,” said a spokesman for the Hamburg police in an interview Report Mainz. Now you can see an increase in burglaries. So far there is no clear answer as to whether there will be as many as before Corona or even more.
KFW funding program discontinued
From the point of view of experts, prevention is all the more important. Each federal state therefore has its own departments. They advise citizens on how to make their house more burglar-proof. It’s about burglar-proof doors, windows, alarm systems. So far, they have also been funded by the federal government. Homeowners and tenants could apply for up to EUR 1,500 in funding from the Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW), financed from the budget of the Federal Building Ministry. According to KfW, the subsidy was paid out more than 60,000 times last year – a total of 38.8 million euros.
But since the summer of this year, no more applications can be made. The funding has been exhausted and, according to the Federal Building Ministry, will not be replenished. For the coming year, the German Bundestag has chosen a different funding priority, says a spokeswoman Report MainzInquiry. The money is now going to other areas, such as climate protection.
The Greens parliamentary group in the Bundestag said the decision was made by consensus within the coalition. “No demand has been heard that the product is still absolutely necessary“, explains the housing policy spokeswoman for the Greens in the Bundestag, Christina-Johanne Schröder, when asked by Report Mainz. The SPD parliamentary group leaves a question unanswered, the FDP does not want to comment.
Prevention was effective, according to experts
Objection comes from the Association of German Criminal Investigators (BDK). “In these times we need more prevention funding, not less,” said Eike Bone-Winkel, deputy federal chairman of the BDK. “In the end, it’s about more security.” The years before the corona pandemic are proof of this.
Burglary offenses have fallen steadily since 2016: from around 151,000 to more than 87,000 in 2019. “That was also a result of the police’s advisory work,” says criminologist Gina Wollinger in an interview with Report Mainz. She has also been researching burglaries at the Police University in North Rhine-Westphalia for years. “We can also see from the numbers that more and more perpetrators are failing when trying to break in. For example, because of burglar-proof doors or windows.” These are things for which the federal government will no longer provide subsidies in the future.