Psychologist: “Fear of robberies has little to do with the actual crime rate”

The safest Germany ever – or a republic sinking into chaos? Psychologist Deliah Wagner knows how much the assessment of this differs from person to person. At the Center for Criminological Research in Saxony, she researches how criminological reality and emotional perception relate to each other.

WORLD ON SUNDAY: Ms Wagner, how safe do you feel in Germany?

Delia Wagner: Very sure. But nothing has ever happened to me either. I won’t deny that it would be different if I had already been the victim of a crime.

JERKIN: When people say they are afraid at the main train station or in a dark park: is that irrational?

Wagner: I would never dare to deny someone their feelings. Fear is probably not so irrational, especially at a main train station. We meet more people here than, for example, at a provincial train station. The probability of witnessing a crime is also higher. However, I do not think it is advisable to avoid such places. You should be vigilant. And we must be aware that the probability of becoming a victim of physical assault or a sexual crime is many times higher in your own four walls than in public.

JERKIN: You surveyed 5,000 people about their perception of crime. What did you learn from this?

Wagner: People greatly overestimate crime. We looked at how actual crime and the perception of crime have developed in 355 districts. Almost 90 percent perceive an increase in crime, contrary to the actual development.

JERKIN: What about violent crime? According to crime statistics, it has recently increased significantly.

Wagner: People assess violent crime more realistically. But we see misjudgments there too. Even in areas where violent crimes have declined, people said that they felt that they had become more impressive.

JERKIN: What factors cause this overestimation?

Wagner: Our study has shown that there is actually only one factor that explains why people overestimate crime: so-called avoidance behavior. Those who withdraw and no longer go outside in order to protect themselves from crime ultimately overestimate it. It is also not the case that people avoid places because they are afraid because of their experiences there, but the opposite is true: people who rarely go out believe that it is much more dangerous there than it actually is.

JERKIN: What role do depictions of violence circulating on the Internet play in this?

Wagner: The perception of violent crime can of course be reinforced by such depictions. The video of the knife attack in Mannheim, for example, was very easy to access. People get the feeling that there is more and more violence because they see it more often than in times when such videos were not yet so widely distributed on the Internet. This feeling is then also reflected in statements made by politicians. AfD leader Alice Weidel said in an interview that people are being brought onto the streets every day. Of course, that is not true.

JERKIN: Does social media also undermine people’s sense of security?

Wagner: The art of the media we consume has a clear effect on fear of crime. Contrary to previous assumptions, TV and radio have little negative impact. The more social media and messengers like Telegram people use, the greater their fear.

JERKIN: Do crimes committed by migrants have a different effect on citizens than crimes committed by German perpetrators?

WAGNER: At least the so-called need for punishment is changing. When a Syrian committed a crime, study participants demanded significantly harsher punishments than for a German offender.

JERKIN: Why is that?

Wagner: We are currently conducting a follow-up study on this. I would be cautious about using words like racism. I think there is a very basic scepticism towards the unknown. We tend to define ourselves in groups and to be much more harsh on other groups. We can already see this in football clubs, where real enmities develop between individual villages.

Lennart Pfahler regularly reports on internal security issues for the WELT investigative team.