German State to Track Multiple Nationalities in Crime Data, Sparking Political Row

North Rhine-Westphalia is set to become the first German state to record multiple nationalities of suspects and victims in its crime statistics.

The policy, ordered by Interior Minister Herbert Reul (of the centre-right CDU), means that anyone holding a German passport alongside another will no longer appear solely as German in the state’s police crime data.

Until now, such cases were recorded only under ‘German,’ masking, according to Reul, the real picture of crime.

According to the minister,

If we don’t cover all nationalities, we are groping in the dark. If you want to see reality, you have to measure it.

Reul believes this change creates clarity, strengthens the police, and helps the state combat crime more effectively. He added that multiple citizenships could be relevant when courts assess flight risks in detention hearings.

The new directive has been applied retrospectively from the beginning of July. The move will not affect nationwide statistics.

The state’s police have crime statistics already evaluated according to the new guidelines.

Last year, one in six suspects with German nationality also had a second passport—a total of 49,825 people. The most common combinations were German-Turkish (10,307), German-Polish (6,652), German-Russian (3,484), German-Moroccan (3,125), and German-Syrian (2,185).

Overall, foreigners were already strongly over-represented in the state’s crime statistics: in 2023, 35.6% of suspects were foreign nationals, despite accounting for just 16.1% of the population.

The new system will make the picture even starker by taking dual nationals out of the ‘German’ category.

Unsurprisingly, the pro-migration Greens, the CDU’s coalition partners in North Rhine-Westphalia, are outraged. According to lawmaker Julia Hüller,

a passport says nothing about why someone commits a crime. This kind of framing is populism and has a dangerous side effect: it turns dual nationals into second-class Germans.

Höller pointed out that Germany’s constitution is unambiguous: anyone with a German passport is German, regardless of whether they also hold another nationality. She accused Reul of engaging in “populism” rather than tackling root causes of crime, such as social exclusion and poverty.

She accused the CDU of playing into the hands of the “nationalist-minded” AfD.

Police unions, however, back the change. Rainer Wendt, head of the German Police Union (DPolG), called it an important step for transparency and argued that clear data reduces the risk of misinterpretation.

The debate comes amid growing frustration about migrant crime across Germany.

A federal police report published earlier this year revealed that nearly 40% of violent crimes nationwide were committed by foreigners in 2024, despite their share of the population being just 16.8%.

With North Rhine-Westphalia now breaking ranks with the rest of the country, the state’s crime statistics will become a test case.