Nearly half of all crime suspects in Austria last year were foreign nationals, even though they represent just 20% of the population, according to the 2024 criminal police report. This stark disparity has reignited fierce political debate over migration and its broader impact on Austrian society.
Out of 335,911 suspects investigated for criminal offenses, 46.8% were non-Austrian, with the largest contingents hailing from Romania, Germany, and Syria, the Austrian press reported. Notably, crimes involving Syrian nationals surged by nearly 30% compared to 2023, with minors accounting for a disproportionate share of that increase.
It’s worth noting that crime data on German suspects can be misleading, as naturalized immigrants are classified as German in official records. The same applies in Austria, where naturalized foreigners aren’t counted as “foreign,” suggesting the true proportion of foreign-born suspects likely exceeds the reported 47 percent.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner of the ruling Austrian People’s Party presented the data on Monday, noting the broader context: 534,193 criminal cases were reported nationwide in 2024, a 1.2% rise from the previous year. The police managed a 52.9% clearance rate—the third-best in a decade—but the growing role of foreign suspects has cast a long shadow over the figures.
The data highlight an unsettling trend: not only are nearly half of all suspects foreign-born, but youth crime is also exploding. Offenses committed by children aged 10 to 14 nearly doubled, reaching 12,049 cases last year, with 48% of suspects in that age bracket being non-Austrian. Syrian minors alone were involved in nearly 1,000 cases, up tenfold since 2020.
Teen offenders aged 14 to 18 weren’t far behind, contributing to a total of 34,806 reported crimes. Many were tied to burglaries, vandalism, and break-ins targeting cars and vending machines—a crime wave increasingly driven by underage perpetrators.
Some of these minors, officials say, are “system crashers”—repeat offenders responsible for dozens of incidents each month. Just three individuals of this kind were linked to more than 3,000 offenses, with one racking up over 1,200 complaints alone.
Faced with these alarming trends, and under pressure to take a tough-on-crime approach with the right-wing Freedom Party leading in the polls, Karner renewed his call to lower the age of criminal responsibility—a move not yet adopted by the government but gaining momentum.
Austria, OGM poll:
FPÖ-PfE: 32% (-2)
ÖVP-EPP: 23% (+4)
SPÖ-S&D: 21%
NEOS-RE: 11% (-2)
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 9% (-1)
KPÖ-LEFT: 2%+/- vs. 17-18 February 2025
Fieldwork: 04-09 April 2025
Sample size: 1,042➤ https://t.co/XWpToewZ7C pic.twitter.com/oZDBtSPKnT
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) April 15, 2025
As an interim step, the interior minister has proposed expanding detention facilities for chronic youth offenders. The NEOS party, typically more liberal on issues related to criminal justice, even backed the idea, advocating for a balance of detention, rehabilitation, and education.
“If 12-year-olds are repeatedly injuring others or themselves, we can’t just stand by,” said Bettina Emmerling (NEOS), who serves as foreign minister and Vienna’s deputy mayor.
Karner also wants harsher penalties for truancy. He’s proposing to raise the current €400 parental fine to €2,000 in cases of repeated school absences.
Property-related offenses rose by 2%, even as residential burglaries declined. The spike came from a 25% jump in break-ins targeting vehicles and vending machines—a trend police directly tie to immigrant youth gangs.
Meanwhile, cybercrime, though still widespread, showed a 5% decline—the first drop in two decades. Federal Criminal Police Office Director Andreas Holzer credited better public awareness but urged greater investment in digital forensics and expanded powers for tracking encrypted communication.
The report’s findings, as one might expect, have intensified calls for stricter immigration controls. Vienna’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Dominik Nepp demanded that the age of criminal responsibility be lowered to 12 and blamed lax border policies for Austria’s crime problems.
Vienna’s Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) chair Karl Mahrer echoed the sentiment, criticizing the city’s welfare programs and migration policies as “magnets for criminality.”
Significantly, officials acknowledged that the real proportion of foreign-born suspects may be far higher. Naturalized immigrants are counted as Austrian citizens in crime statistics—a factor that skews the numbers and likely underestimates the scale of foreign involvement.
Amid growing public safety concerns, Austria now faces pressing questions: how to address the surge in youth crime, reform its criminal justice system, and grapple with the long-term consequences of decades of pro-mass migration policies
Karner, a leading member of the ÖVP—the very party that helped shape the pro-mass migration policies contributing to Austria’s current challenges—is now insisting that the status quo can no longer be maintained.
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