Dark season
More burglaries, especially in cities – which claims about burglars are true
A burglar tampers with a window with a screwdriver
© Frank Rumpenhorst / DPA
The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer. According to many, the burglary season is now beginning. But is that true? Some claims about break-ins and burglars in a fact check.
Thieves break open doors or windows and gain access to houses and apartments. It is believed that they have particularly easy prey in the dark. Is that correct? A Fact check for Burglary Protection Day on Sunday (October 29th), which coincides with the time change. Some claims
Darkness attracts burglars.
Evaluation: Not clear.
Facts: According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), there are more burglaries in the winter than in the summer. From September 2021 to February 2022 there were almost 35,000 cases, while from March to August 2022 there were around 28,000. According to BKA information, thieves came in two out of three cases between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. in 2022. This period also includes burglaries at an undetermined time – for example when the residents went away for the weekend or were on vacation.
Break-ins are happening more and more often.
Evaluation: Partially wrong.
Facts: The BKA registered around 65,900 residential burglaries nationwide last year. Compared to the previous year, this was the first increase in eight years. However, the numbers previously declined steadily: from around 167,100 cases (2015) to around 54,200 (2021).
Possible reasons: The police fight preventatively and repressively against break-ins – for example by using technical security devices. According to the BKA, the pandemic with increased home offices as well as a higher number of border controls and border closures are likely to have played a role in 2020 and 2021.
Although there was the first year-on-year increase in 2022, the level is still below that of 2019 (around 87,100 burglaries), when there was no Covid pandemic yet.
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People in big cities are particularly at risk.
Evaluation: The trend is correct.
Facts: “The focus is on metropolises and urban regions as well as areas along highways and railway lines,” writes the BKA. A look at the Germany Atlas, which shows the number of residential burglaries per 100,000 inhabitants for 2021, also shows that this can vary greatly from region to region.
According to the Germany Atlas from, among others, the Federal Institute for Building, Urban and Spatial Research and the Federal Ministry of the Interior, there were an average of almost 53 residential burglaries per 100,000 residents nationwide in 2021. But the range is enormous: most of the cases were in Bremerhaven with 256 cases. Very low values of between 3 and under 20 cases per 100,000 occurred almost exclusively in Bavaria.
More than 200 burglaries per 100,000 inhabitants were committed, mainly in cities. This can also be seen, for example, in the average: in independent cities this value was around 74 and in rural districts it was around 45.
Nevertheless, there were a few rural districts across the country with more residential break-ins than in cities. In Munich there were around 24 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, while in the neighboring district of Starnberg there were almost 40.
Regional differences were observed in Germany in 2021. In the south, for example in Munich and Stuttgart, there were fewer burglaries per 100,000 inhabitants than in the Ruhr area – for example in Gelsenkirchen, Dortmund and Essen. The rate was also higher in the north, for example in Kiel and Bremen, than in the south.
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Burglars are mostly migrants.
Evaluation: Incorrect.
Facts: “German nationals and local-regional perpetrators continue to dominate among the suspects identified,” writes the BKA. Accordingly, in 2022, more than 85 percent of the suspects were male and around 60.5 percent were German. Nevertheless, according to the BKA, the proportion of supra-regional and international suspects still plays a major role. They often come from Southeast and Eastern Europe. However, it is not clear from the BKA statistics whether the suspects will actually be convicted in court as perpetrators.