Summaries

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
It is almost traditional the public discussion of crime rates and the war on crime are the exclusive realm of the political rightwing. Representative of the leftwing and the liberal elements of the political spectrum have traditionally proven themselves at a loss to cope with such questions and have generally limited their activities to little more than appeals or protests to uphold civil rights and liberal freedoms. The present issue of CILIP attempts to strengthen these voices and to formulate new policies on ‚Domestic Security‘ so direly needed at present against the popular current.

Fourteen Theses on Domestic Security
by Wolf-Dieter Narr
Calls for increased ‚law and order‘ are always popular courses of action in uncertain times. Security experts are called to the front: ‚comprehensive measures‘ are proposed, tougher laws are referred to as potential panaceas and calls for a police force capable of restoring public order fill the media. If all efforts are to accomplish more than merely contributing to the general atmosphere of panic, then it becomes all the more necessary to avoid contributing to such an atmosphere and practice oriented theory the prerequisite of any and all practice. Theoretical principles are not, of course, immediately practicable, they are nevertheless – today more than ever – necessary.

Reforming Domestic Security
by Norbert Pütter
Precisely because we can see no light at the end of the tunnel with reference of the major economic and social crisis in general and because we can thus expect an increase in the political use and abuse of the domestic security apparatuses, we must strive all the more for democratic reform. Democratic policies which provides security and protection for its citizens must evolve out of a selfconcept of basic democratic rights all too often intentionally removed from political debate by the political actors involved. The whole field of penal law and police law is the last line of defence for society. This line is transgressed at the point where all other efforts to maintain these principles have failed.

Crime and the Fear of Crime
by Otto Diederichs
„Germans fear for the property“, „Berliners‘ insecurity on the rise“, „Citizens feel threatened by criminals“, „Kiel’s citizens live dangerously“ are about only a few of the thousands of such headlines published in Germany’s media during the past years. If we study the official crime statistics of the police of the past decades, we would be forced to concede that there is reason for such alarm. Using the methods of the annual police crime statistics, crime rates in the FRG have been predominately rising and have more than doubled over the past thirty years. And although certain indicators point in the direction of a real increase in crime rates, the general trend is considerably less dramatic than the public’s perception of the problem.

Rethinking Legislation
by Norbert Pütter
The changes in domestic security legislation since the first half of the seventies came into being as a mixture of the omnipotence fantasies on the part of the police and a general lack of bureaucratic fantasy on the part of legislators. They have given the police and the state’s attorneys offices a degree of authority in frame of state-society relations which massively exaggerates the specific nature of the organs and apparatuses of domestic security which simultaneously underestimating the dangers for the democratic core of society.

Reforming Security Institutions
by Otto Diederichs
The target of the police reforms of the seventies envisioned having a police force not only capable of acting according to the traditional pattern of ‚If this happens, we respond as follows‘ in dealing with specific real crimes and dangers. It envisioned a police force capable of detecting dangers and crimes before called in to react to such events. Today, most security experts have abandoned the vision that there are no limits as to what a police force can accomplish. Most have, however, maintained their belief in the police’s capacity to perform preventive police work due to the superiority of their knowledge, their technology and level of professional proficiency. This means that the key concept is still present in the minds of many security experts. For this reason, the police are in danger of once again being sent up a deadend street.

Police and the Community
by Norbert Pütter and Otto Diederichs
The call for ‚a police force closer to the people‘ or more specifically ‚community police work‘ is an indication of the failure of traditional german police work in general. For several years now several efforts have been initiated attempting to close the gap between traditional police work and providing ’security‘ in a local context. Current attempts as ‚community policing‘ and striving for ‚prevention councils‘ are – despite all necessary critique – steps definitely in the right direction. However, achieving citizen oriented police work at the community level requires a different police force and a correspondingly revised concept of police work. At present we can detect no such efforts.

The Interests of the Victims
by Otto Diederichs
Not only within the police force and in the courts, in our own general public awareness it is the perpetrators who receive by far the most public attention. Neither the ‚Victim Compensation Act‘ which went in force twenty years ago, nor the ‚Act pertaining to the Improvement of the Position of the Victims in Criminal Court Procedure‘ (the so-called Victims Protection Act) have been able to make any real contribution to improving this situation. Yet providing improved treatment for the victims of crime is achievable with a minimum of effort. The article discusses some of the possibilities.

European Domestic Security
by Heiner Busch
Police co-operation throughout Europe has been quantitatively and qualitatively expanded since the mid seventies. Primarily promoted by the security executives of its national members, the Europeanisation of ‚Domestic Security‘ was always characterised by a conspicuously low level of sensitivity to the decorum of democratic government. Hardly more than an insignificant portion of the international co-operation in the fields of domestic security and justice policies is codified in legal international agreements and other accords which have been ratified by the corresponding parliaments. The author points not only to these deficiencies, but also brings forth some possible solutions to the situation.

The Privileges and Immunities of Europol
(A Documentation)
In the protocol dealing with the ‚Privileges and Immunities for Europol‘ agreement was reached that Europol Officials shall be excused from answering „before any court“, that all written materials are „privileged inviolable material“ and that the agency shall be subject to no budgetary controls with reference to its transactions. CILIP documents the key passages of this supplementary protocol.

Fatal Police Shootings 1996
by Otto Diederichs
For years CILIP published its statistics on fatal police shootings during the previous year in the first issue of the new year. This year, this was not possible due to the fact that there were considerable discrepancies between CILIP’s own statistics and the statistics published by the ‚Conference of the Ministries of the Interior‘ which could not be explained as deriving from differences in the various methods of obtaining information. CILIP has taken a closer look at these discrepancies and has come up with some unexpected results.