According to a survey, the fear of criminal offenses in Germany is still low despite increased crime. Few people feared becoming a victim of theft, fraud or robbery, said the information center of RV Versicherung as a result of their long-term study "The Fears of the Germans".

According to this, in 2022, as in 2021, only around one in five (19 percent) of those surveyed are afraid of it. And this despite the fact that the number of crimes registered by the police in 2022 had increased for the first time in five years - by 11.5 percent to 5.63 million cases.

"This significant increase is not reflected in our survey," said study leader Grischa Brower-Rabinowitsch. A look at the past shows that fear has steadily decreased since the long-term survey began. "For comparison: In the 1990s, this concern was much higher," explained Brower-Rabinowitsch. According to his statements, the values ​​at that time were often above the 40 percent mark.

Anxiety in the East higher than in the West

This year's study also showed that the fear in the east (29 percent) of the Federal Republic is significantly higher than in the west (17 percent). There is also a significant difference between men and women: Around a quarter of women (24 percent) are afraid of becoming a victim of a crime - for men, the figure is only 14 percent. Older people are also more afraid of crime than younger people: 26 percent of those over 60 are very afraid of it - almost twice as many as among those under 40 years of age.

Every year since 1992, the RV-Infocenter has asked a representative selection of the population about their greatest fears relating to politics, the economy, the environment, family, health - and crime.