An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
When the ‚Standing Conference of Secretaries of the Interior‘ met in May 1992 the participants basically agreed on a new structural reform of the German police. The main aspect of the new reform, entired „Police 2000“, is the call for a change of career schemes and for higher qualification of all police officers. It is remarkable that at the same time, due most of all to the recent economic crisis in Germany, the German police has no longer problems in finding junior staff, which has been the case for several years. Both deve-lopments justify a closer look at the training schemes of today and at the way training and recruitment of police officers usually work in practice.

Police Training in the Federal Republic of Germany
by Otto Diederichs and Wolf-Dieter Narr
Training always consists of more than mere mediation of specific knowledge and key professional capacities. Police training also imparts a picture of social reality common to members of police units and forces and forms habit patterns. This all the more – or perhaps it then really sets in – once formal training has been completed and male and female police officers are integrated into the daily professional life of the police force and (re-) taught the ropes there by experienced professionals.
The article provides a survey of the training curricula and types of police training in Germany and the problems involved.

On the Relationship Between Subordinates and Superiors in the Readiness Force
by Manfred Mahr
The author, long-standing spokesperson for the ‚Federal Working Group of Critical Policewomen and Policemen‘, reports on his experiences during a 125 month tour of duty as assistant commander of a police company of the Hamburg Police Readiness Force. He describes his own astonishment and dismay at discovering how quickly his unit could be used as an instrument from which he could have practically demanded anything he wanted, simply on the basis of his rank and despite his reputation as someone known for being critical of police practices.

Women on the Police Force
by Kea Tielemann
Today, women on the police force are nothing unusual. They’ve been an element of detective divisions since the turn of the 20th century. Initially they were recruited from the social services professions and were primarily active in specifically female areas such as confronting juvenile and female delinquency as well as in dealing with juvenile and female victims of crime. It is only since the late 70’s that they have been incorporated into the general police force. Tielemann’s article lists the reasons for this change in policy and the expectations attached to incorporating women into the regular police force and surveys the current situation.

Aliens on the Police Force
by Albrecht Maurer
Since May 14, 1993 it’s official: „‚The Standing Conference of Secretaries of the Interior‘ favors incorporating aliens into the state and national police forces in compliance with certain individual entrance standards“. The author reviews the past debate on the subject and reports on the current situation in the police forces of the individual states. His conclusion: In terms of numbers, all aliens currently on duty or in training for police duty would still fit into a single bus. Their incorporation into the police force has little in common with the current level of „integration“ of aliens into German society and is primarily based on „professional needs“.

Antistresstraining in the German Police Force
by Norbert Pütter
Since the second half of the 80’s elements of behavioural, communication and anti-stresstraining have become common in education schemes for German police officers. The police forces of the individual states (Länder) have tried since then – by differing efforts – to adopt various psychological methods in order to improve the social and communication skills of their officers. The article provides a survey of the current programmes and training schemes.

Special Unit Training
by Werner Schmidt
Reflective, controlled, stress-resistant, patient and emotionally stabile as well as calm and collected and in good physical condition are the ideal characteristics of the members of special units and indeed those used as selection criteria. The training guidelines are standardized at the national level in a confidential memorandum entitled ‚Guideline 206‘. The author, a police reporter for a local Berlin daily, has consolidated the available knowledge and details concerning training for these special units.

Training and ‚Duty Shock‘
by Burkhard Opitz
If a junior high school graduate decides to enter the police force on gradua-ting from school at the age of sixteen on the average he or she will face three years of police training upon successful completion of the entrance exams and tests. As a consequence of the manner in which police training is structured, candidates are confronted with tests of their motivation for entering the police force quite early in their training program. This can even lead to ‚duty shock‘ when candidates are incorporated into normal police duty during training. The author, chairperson of the state youth group, ‚Junge Gruppe‘, a police union junior organization, explains the reasons for this shock.

College Education für Police Officers
by Michael Rothschuh-Wanner
A comprehensive model for reformation of the police force in Lower Saxony has been developed by the SPD/Greens coalition in the state of Lower Saxony. One of the key elements of this process is the reformation of police training. It is to become a college level degree program which actually involves a college education and not merely a technical school training level training program with a fancy name – if things proceed according to the desires of the planning staff involved. The author, himself a member of the reform commission, provides an overview of the key elements of the model currently being debated in terms of implementation and points to some of the program’s weaknesses.

Comments on a European Police Leadership Academy
by Peter Klerks
The author, a member of the faculty of penal law and criminology at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, and currently involved in research on ‚organized crime‘ provides this report on developments with respect to the creation of a Police Leadership Academy at the European level. Tentatively titled the European Police Institute, the institution which would be located at the academy of junior college level would, according to its promoters, one day be in a position to train Europe’s 10.000 potential candidates for higher leadership positions within local and national police forces as well as Eu-rope’s 3.700 annual graduates of police training academies. The article cites reservations which have also been formulated by police experts from both Belgium and the Federal Republic of Germany.

Italy as an Immigrant Country
by Massimo Pastore
If we remember that Italy has traditionally been a country known for having sustained continued emigration then it isn’t all that surprising that up until the middle of the 80’s there was no coordinated policy for immigration, de-spite the country’s being an immigrant country. Within the span of relatively few years the country has adopted the control and regulation mechanisms common to other European countries. This rapid process of adaptation to existing norms results from importance attributed to harmonizing migration policies and frontier controls in conjunction with European integration and planned freedom of movement within the future boundaries of Europe. The author, who teaches criminology at the University of Turino, describes the current situation in his country which is of particular significance in controlling one of Europe’s most sensitive frontiers.

Organized Crime: On the Practical Political Utility of a Phrase
by Sabine Strunk and Norbert Pütter
Hardly a day passes without some report about it in the daily tabloids; hardly a weekend when no politician calls for a decisive effort to combat it; hardly a month passes without at least one political party calling for new resolutions aimed at more effectively combatting it. It, of course, is organized crime. Berlin is used as an example for demonstrating how this phrase is used in the political arena of police politics, what the motives are and what effects this use of the term has.
New member of the Interpol Executive Committee elected
by Heiner Busch

Early in October the General Assembly of the ‚International Criminal Police Organization‘ – better known as ‚Interpol‘ – met at the Caribbean island Ar-ruba. Amongst the newly elected members of the Executive Committee – comprising fourteen persons – is Nelson Mery Figueroa, one of the two American delegates and known for being responsible for acts of torture and displacements under the military regime of Pinochet in Chile.