The number of convictions in Bavaria’s criminal courts fell last year. There were a total of 109,024 people, up from almost 117,000 in 2020. “It is striking that in the second year of the pandemic the number of crimes on the street fell, while the number of crimes on the Internet increased significantly,” said Minister of Justice Georg Eisenreich ( CSU) on the 2021 law enforcement statistics. However, the decline cannot be explained solely by the pandemic, and the exact reasons should only gradually become comprehensible. The majority of those convicted were male (17.2 per cent women). In the end, around six percent of all those convicted had to be imprisoned without parole. The percentage of foreigners is about the same: 41.8 percent; Asylum offenses and the like are excluded.
Some trends can be explained by the pandemic. Road traffic offenses have traditionally accounted for the largest proportion of crime, but the incidence was lower during the temporary lockdowns. In 2021, the number of people convicted fell by 9.2 percent, and drunken offenses fell by as much as 16.2 percent. According to Eisenreich, however, it is striking that 210 people were convicted of banned car races – 62.8 percent more than in the previous year. “This shows how important it was that the federal government made participation in illegal car races a punishable offense in 2017, also on Bavaria’s initiative.” The increase in convictions for domestic violence, plus twelve percent, is also considered to be a corona consequence. Burglaries decreased – but that was already the case before Corona, also because of prevention by homeowners. In 2021 there was more subsidy fraud, also in the Corona context. A special team at the Nuremberg Public Prosecutor’s Office has been investigating such crimes in the health care system, such as fraudulent test stations, for a good two years.
Every fourth offense among young people and adolescents involves drugs
558 people were convicted of child pornography, an increase of 18 percent. “Behind every picture, behind every video, is the unbelievable suffering of a child,” said Eisenreich, calling for more investigative powers. Incidentally, such pictures are a phenomenon on the mobile phones of young people who carelessly circulate in chats, experts speak of “schoolyard child pornography”. The proportion of young people involved in the offense has risen from 1.3 to 20.1 percent since 2018. Here the Free State relies on a campaign entitled “Don’t turn your mobile phone into a weapon”.
In the case of convictions of young people and adolescents, every fourth offense relates to the Narcotics Act, as the statistics show. Minister of Health Klaus Holetschek has recently spoken out publicly against the planned legalization of cannabis through traffic lights, but not the Minister of Justice. He has the same “clear stance,” Eisenreich said when asked. The Ministry of Health is dealing with the medical dangers of cannabis and whether or not it is a gateway drug. So it makes sense that Holetschek is responsible for the topic in coordination.