A leaked confidential report from police in Germany’s most populous state indicates that the nation’s law enforcement is preparing for an increase in crime in the face of Germany’s ongoing refugee crisis.
A document from the North Rhine-Westphalian Department of the Interior titled “Challenges to and Impact on the Police” was leaked to the magazine Spiegel, according to the Daily Mail.
The report states that “immigration will lead to more crime and increased police usage” in response. Crimes committed by those seeking asylum in the country — including drug and sex offenses — are on the rise, and police are additionally concerned about a “rise in radicalization against the state.”
Police in Cologne, Germany, told AFP they received more than 100 complaints Dec. 31 from women reporting assaults ranging from groping to at least one reported rape, allegedly committed in a large crowd of partiers during year-end festivities outside the city's main train station and its famed Gothic cathedral. (Markus Boehm/AFP/Getty Images)
According to the report, last year in North Rhine-Westphalia, police responded 93,000 times to violence in refugee facilities due to “cultural, ethnic and religious conflicts in the accommodation, the spatial narrowness, lack of privacy and the considerable consumption of alcohol triggered conflicts.”
“Resulting consequences must be drawn,” police wrote.
The report states that if the refugee crisis and spike in crime remain unresolved, authorities are concerned about ensuing “right-wing agitation” and have warned that it will continue to place an “enormous additional burden” on police.
The city of Cologne is located in North Rhine-Westphalia, which was the scene of a series of sexual assaults that took place on New Year’s Eve.