In 2016, the courts in Germany convicted a total of 737,873 defendants by final judgment for felonies or misdemeanours. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that this was a decrease of 1,614 people, or 0.2%, compared with the previous year (739,487).

As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) 4.9 million criminal investigation proceedings were completed by public prosecution offices in Germany in 2017. This was a decrease of 6.2% on 2016 (about 5.2 million proceedings).

In nearly all cases of divorce (96%) in 2013 involving joint minors, parental custody was awarded to both parents (63.425 proceedings) because neither of the parents had applied for sole custody under Section 1671 (1) of the German Civil Code.