Germany takes tougher action against knife crime – DW – 18.08.2024

The German government has announced stricter knife laws after police reported a rise in the number of stabbings, particularly near train stations, but the statistics remain controversial.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called for a change in the law, whereby in future only blades of six centimeters in length would be allowed to be carried in public, instead of the current twelve centimeters. An exception would be household knives in their original packaging. Switchblades would be banned entirely.

“Knives are used to commit brutal acts of violence that can lead to serious injuries or death,” Faeser told ARD in early August. “We need stricter gun laws and stricter controls.”

The government statement came after police statistics recorded a 5.6% increase in cases of serious bodily harm with knives compared to the previous year (8,951 incidents in 2023). The Federal Police, which is responsible for security at German airports and major train stations, also reported a significant increase in knife attacks in and around train stations (430 in the first six months of this year).

Controversial statistics

However, the police have only been collecting statistics on knife crime since 2021, and criminologists do not dare to define the latest figures as a trend. Dirk Baier, a German criminologist at the Institute for Delinquency and Crime Prevention in Zurich, said there is actually hardly any data on knife crime in Germany.

“The police take into account both actual knife attacks and knife threats, so it's a very vague category,” he told DW. “And it was only a short time ago, so the numbers are not really reliable.”

That did not stop the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) from using the figures to claim that the country's “migration policy” was to blame. “We have exploding crime among foreigners, juvenile crime, migrant violence because we have open borders,” AfD leader Alice Weidel told public broadcaster ZDF in July.

Meanwhile, German media interest in knife crime has increased in recent months after a police officer was killed by an Afghan refugee in Mannheim in May. The attack on an anti-Islamic activist appears to have been motivated by Islamism.

However, criminologists do not see a general connection between violent crime and migrant background. Although non-Germans are disproportionately represented in police statistics on knife crime, this alone is not a very helpful finding, argues Baier.

“If we take a closer look at the group of non-Germans, we find very different groups of people: There are Eastern Europeans, Africans, South Americans and people with an Arab background,” he said. “These are very different cultures, so we cannot say that there is such a thing as a specific 'knife' culture or ethnic background that is directly related to carrying knives.”

“We need to talk less about the country they come from and more about their living conditions,” he added. “What environment did they grow up in? Among which friends do they consider it important to carry knives? What educational background do they have? We need to look at their social circumstances and not limit ourselves to nationality.”

How can we combat knife crime?

Given this background, Baier is skeptical that Faeser's law will have much of an impact in the long term. However, he added that it could at least simplify German legislation. Currently, it is extremely complicated, with each federal state having its own rules about what kind of knife is allowed and what is not.

“It's a good signal, so to speak,” he said. “But if you look at the benefit in terms of preventing knife crime, then I would say it has no benefit.” Because, Baier argued, people who carry dangerous knives will continue to do so whether it is legal or not.

This raises a more pressing problem: how can potential attacks be combatted in the first place? Lars Wendland, chairman of the police union (GdP), welcomed Faeser's proposal in principle, but argued that the police need more than just a change in the law to be able to work effectively. “What is the use of tightening the laws if we can't enforce them?” he told DW. “We also need to check whether we have the staff and equipment to implement them.”

Wendland believes that facial recognition surveillance and allowing police to conduct random checks in designated “gun-free zones” would be a good start. But Faeser has not mentioned these measures so far – and it is doubtful whether they even fall within her remit, since designating these zones is usually the responsibility of local governments.

Such zones have been introduced in some German cities, and while there is little evidence that they have actually led to a decrease in violent crime, Baier says they do seem to make people feel safer. “There have been scientific studies on gun-free zones in Leipzig and Wiesbaden – both of which have shown that crime did not decrease noticeably. But the population felt safer. I think that is most likely because there were more police officers on site,” he said.

Knife crime has also become a major problem in other parts of Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, where the government also introduced new bans on large bladed weapons late last year.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

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