Hopes and dangers of the „police of the future“
by Norbert Pütter and Eric Töpfer
The modernisation of police forces also includes the instruments and procedures they use, which are the result of scientific and technological progress. Although little is known about the details, new technologies are used in all areas of police work and their expansion is a declared aim of the responsible bodies. Digitalisation in particular is seen as an opportunity for more effective police work. With the expansion of their technical capacities, the police’s options to define suspicious behavior, for monitoring and taking action are increasing; the new technologies make it even more difficult to control police work. Summaries weiterlesen →
Control in capitalism. An intersectional perspective
by Jenny Künkel
Capitalism was out of fashion for a long time. Since the financial crisis and pandemic, social movements with different relationships to the repressive state apparatus as well as critical criminology, in which abolitionist traditions are reviving, have increasingly turned their attention to capitalist socialisation. This article outlines the questions that need to be asked and addressed in the future. Summaries weiterlesen →
Protest as a police problem. Granting and damaging a fundamental right
by Norbert Pütter
Demonstrations and political actions in public spaces regularly lead to police operations. According to the prevailing legal doctrine, the police must protect the fundamental right to freedom of assembly, ward off threats to public safety or order and prosecute criminal offences. These different objectives result in considerable scope for police action, which can determine the forms, effects and consequences of the protest. A number of major events are used as examples to illustrate how the police, involved in political processes and the threat of criminal sanctions, curtail the freedom of assembly. Summaries weiterlesen →
Sensors and Data of Fortress Europe
by Dirk Burczyk, Christian Meyer, Matthias Monroy and Stephanie Schmidt
In order to detect and prevent uncontrolled migration, the European Union is increasingly using advanced technologies. These can be divided into sensor-based and data-based applications. The commercial interests of the providers go hand in hand with the technological development of Europe’s external borders. However, there are also approaches by non-governmental organizations to use the observation technologies for the purpose of sousveillance. Summaries weiterlesen →
Police Accountability
by Hannah Espín Grau and Marie-Theres Piening
Parallel to the expansion of the powers of the German police, a critical public debate on the role of the police is increasing. The existing mechanisms to control the police are of limited efficacy and can only counteract the expansion of power in a piecemeal fashion. Therefore, it seems necessary to build on the momentum of the growing debate, to reconceptualize police control, and to consider how society can be empowered vis-à-vis the police. To this end, the article introduces the concept of “police accountability” and discusses its opportunities and limits regarding a stronger democratic containment of the police. Summaries weiterlesen →
The Myth of “Clan Crime“
by Tom Jennissen und Louisa Zech
The article provides an introduction to the current main topic “clan crime“. The discourse on “clan crime“ leads to racist control practices and the weakening of constitutional principles. It serves to project crime onto the supposedly “foreign” and is politically exploited. Summaries weiterlesen →
Thematic Focus: The EU – A New Kind of Security State?
The European Union and its Crises
by Chris Jones and Yasha Macanico
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999, various crises have served as pretexts for expanding the EU security structures, expanding the power of the EU’s repressive agencies. Politically motivated human rights violations continue to be daily fare and are worsening with the latest “migration crisis” on the EU’s eastern borders. Summaries weiterlesen →
Thematic Focus: Police Laws – Eroding Boundaries and Protest
Five Years of Toughening Up Police Laws in Review
by Eric Töpfer and Marius Kühne
Germany has upgraded. On July 20, 2021, the Bavarian state parliament passed the last amendment to the Bavarian Police Tasks Law (for the time being), marking the provisional end to a series of measures toughening up police law that began in 2017 with the amendment to the Federal Criminal Police Law. This not only involved new powers to combat “dangerous persons”, but also the expansion of surveillance and dragnet searches, as well as an expansion of the arsenal of weapons. The updates to subjects’ rights and data protection that were implemented simultaneously did not compensate for this increase in power. Summaries weiterlesen →
Policing, Sexuality, and Gender. Feminism Between Critique of Power and Punitiveness
by Jenny Künkel
The police remains a hetero-masculine institution. Perpetrators, prisoners, and victims of (police) violence are predominantly male. Sexual violence, however, mostly affects women and trans people, and the “ideal victim” (N. Christie) and fear of crime are regarded as female. Policing and punishment are gendered. Particularly in public spaces, sexual and gender “deviance” is marginalized and controlled. In private life, sexual violence was of little interest until feminist battles changed this. This introduction aims to give an overview over these issues and the categories conveying power structures within policing. Nevertheless, the manner in which they are addressed must be analyzed from a perspective critical of power, since protecting women and children has been used in expansion of control. Summaries weiterlesen →
On Abolishing the Police Problem
by Benjamin Derin and Michèle Winkler
Against the background of the current debate on “Defund the police“, this introductory article discusses different critical perspectives on the police in Germany that focus on police use of force, racist practices of control, right-wing tendencies within the police, the expansion of police powers, or the increasingly police-based response to social issues. The different perspectives yield varying demands and approaches to solutions. Summaries weiterlesen →
Seit 1978 Berichte, Analysen, Nachrichten zu den Themen Polizei, Geheimdienste, Politik „Innerer Sicherheit“ und BürgerInnenrechte.
