Crime statistics: What’s behind Peglow’s sentence “It’s better not to have a relationship with men”.

In Germany, the police crime statistics for 2025 have been published in the last few days – and, as expected, they have caused quite a stir. The chairman of the Association of German Criminal Investigators, Dirk Peglow, triggered a major debate with a classification: trans Gender and the relationship between suspects and victims.

In a television interview, he summed it up like this: “If you go by the statistics, (women should) not get into a relationship with a man.” This sentence caused a considerable outcry in certain circles. Commentators saw men as being under general suspicion and described Peglow’s statement as irresponsible.

The context

To understand Peglow’s statement and the debate surrounding it, it is important to understand the question he was asking. The interviewer specifically asked him what advice he would give to women. In response to the first sentence, Peglow also stated that, given the numbers, the risk of becoming a victim of psychological or physical violence is higher in such relationships. He also pointed out at other points in the interview that the suspects come from the victims’ social circle. It is “not the strange man waiting behind the bush”.

Peglow defended himself against the interpretations of his statement to the Bild newspaper. The statement was “clearly formulated” and “was not intended as literal advice”. The overwhelming majority of men are not violent and are not perpetrators. “I wanted to dispel the common misconception that violence against women is primarily a danger from unknown perpetrators on the street. In many cases this does not correspond to reality.”

The numbers

This is also shown by the crime statistics. In 2025, the largest proportion of suspects for female victims across all victim crimes came from close environments – marriage, partnership and family. In the case of male victims, however, the majority of suspects had no relationship with the victim. However, the available data on relationships does not indicate the gender of the suspects and includes all victim crimes – even those that are probably less included in the debate, such as robberies of financial institutions.

Such a general consideration of all crimes still allows us to assume that suspects with no connection to the female victims occur almost as often as those from close surroundings. However, the picture becomes clearer when individual types of crimes are examined. For example, the Federal Criminal Police Office writes that in particularly serious cases, the suspects in the area of ​​rape, sexual coercion and sexual assault predominantly come from close social circles – friends or acquaintances and partners or former partners.

You can find Peglow’s full statements in the interview, in which he also discusses the high number of non-German suspects here in the ZDF media library.

Jan Janssen (jjn) has been working for 20 minutes since 2023. First in the Zurich department and since 2025 in the News, Business & Video Reports department.