Thematic focus: Environmental Crime

Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs

During the heyday of the debate on police enforcement of law in conjunction with crimes against the environment, CILIP published its first special issue in 1985 on the „environmental protection police“. More than 10 years later it appears only right to look back and attempt to trace developments over the past twelve years and to take a close look at what has happened in the meantime in terms of legal, organisational and police structural developments. The search for qualified experts proved even difficult. It would appear that crimes against the environment have mutated to little more than lists within the crime statistics. Hardly anybody appears to devote major attention to the question of the relevance of police units devoted to the protection of the environment which were so heatedly debated in the Eighties. Summaries weiterlesen →

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. Summaries weiterlesen →

Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
After an extended interruption of publication which the editorial staff of CILIP used to brood over: to march on or go to pasture, that’s the question, we finally arrived at a decision. Despite devastating financial difficulties, we shall march on at least for the current year. This, in essence, explains why we are going to press so late this year. It additionally proved impossible to deal with a special theme, so the present issue contains a ‚potpourri‘ of topical issues. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
Browsing through the relevant literature in this country, one finds hardly any information about the structural changes in the police of the post-Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. And not a word about the development of civil liberties in these countries. For this reason, the ‚Institute for Civil Rights and Public Safety‘ organised an international conference in Berlin on the subject of ‚Police Development and Civil Liberties in the East-European Countries‘. This issue contains the papers presented at the conference. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment by Otto Diederichs
Following experiences gained in the USA and on the basis of the Council of Europe”s recommendation on ”Freedom of Information and the Public access to Government Documents”, the ”Humanist Union”, one of the oldest Ger-man civil liberties groups, started its campaign for access rights in 1980. 16 years later the struggle for freedom of information and access to personal files and data has made only littleprogress in the FRG.
Legislative initiatives by green parliamentary groups in different federal states were either frustated or withdrawn. This edition of CILIP presents the currant legal and practical situation with a special focus on access to police and security information. And something completely new: Beginning with this issue CILIP is available via Internet. Step by step we will also intend to make all back issues available. Our Internet adress is: http://www.ipn.de/cilip Summaries weiterlesen →

Editorial Statement
by Otto Diederichs
While it is probably safe to assume that nearly all of us have heard of EUROPOL, few of us have any inkling of what actually exists behind the name. Who really knows what the ‚Third Pillar‘ of European Union or anything about the significance of customs authorities? The expansion and establishment of international police co-operation in the European Union is by and large becoming reality behind the scenes. CILIP has undertaken to partially alleviate this situation by publishing some previously unpublished (and annotated) significant documents in its current issue. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
The re-creation of secret services, euphemistically termed secret intelligence services in the language of the political arena in Germany, took place in post-war Germany (both East and West) with remarkable celerity. Establishing control mechanisms for these agencies proved considerably more difficult. It wasn’t until 1956 that the parties of Germany’s Bundestag succeeded in forcing Chancellor Adenauer (CDU) to accede to the creation of a so-called „Body of Confidential Men“ which was subsequently informed about selected secret service matters on a completely sporadic basis. From this body today’s parliamentary control bodies finally evolved under numerous difficulties. (In the former GDR, for instance, no control beyond the state party SED (Socialist Unity Party) ever came into existence.) Yet, how effective can such parliamentary control bodies which are forced – with the exception of a few domestic affairs committees – to meet exclusively in closed session be at all? This special issue of CILIP attempts top deal with these questions. Summaries weiterlesen →

Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
This issue of Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP has once again shifted its focus from specific aspects and areas of police activities and attempts to deal with police work in a much more general manner, and that more at the level of what we would consider to be general police work in the more traditional sense. Day-to-day safety concepts are the focus of our interest in the present issue. This includes such classic examples as patrol duty as well as the incessant expansion in the creation of special units and task forces or the partial delegation of such activities upon private-citizen ‚partners in security‘. Summaries weiterlesen →