In 2017, the courts in Germany convicted approximately 716,000 defendants by final judgment. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that this was a decrease of roughly 21,800 people, or 3.0%, compared with the previous year. The criminal proceedings against approximately a further 159,200 people ended with other court decisions, including about 133,700 cases where the proceedings were dismissed. Since 2007, when criminal prosecution statistics were first collected in the whole of Germany, the number of proceedings completed in the courts has decreased (-21%), as has the number of convictions by final judgment (-20%).

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.