NCJ Number
131006
Journal
Kriminalist Volume: 22 Issue: 9 Dated: (September 1990) Pages: 346-350
Date Published
1990
Length
3 pages
Annotation
The article analyzes several international crime statistics to arrive at a realistic view of the West German crime situation.
Abstract
The author bases his conclusions on a series of telephone interviews conducted in 16 European and non-European nations during which random subjects were asked if they had become crime victims in 1988. Recent official crime statistics from the Soviet Union and other East European countries are also considered. The telephone interviews place West Germany's crime problem in a middle position between high-crime countries such as the United States and Spain, and low-crime countries such as Finland and Switzerland. However, Germany's internal security is increasingly threatened by the dramatic political changes in Eastern Europe. Statistics show not only that Eastern European crime rates are rapidly rising (especially in the areas of homicide, assault and battery, and robberies) but that the communist claim to a crime-free society was never more than a fiction. In its central location in a Europe of more open border crossings. West German must be vigilant to avoid becoming the hub of international crime activity.