An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
This 50th issue of CILIP is, as would be expected, a special anniversary is-sue. While the information service which began in 1978 has traditionally fo-cused on documenting developments in the field of domestic security and their effects on civil rights, we shall attempt to reverse the order in this spe-cial issue. In this issue, human and civil rights organizations and their effects on official policy makers and their decisions is one of the key points of focus in this issue. In keeping with past tradition, CILIP focuses in on those organizations predominantly occupied with defending human and civil rights in their daily activities today or in the past. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
With the initiation of a discussion of so-called ‚organized crime‘ in the be-ginning of the 70’s the debate on the use of covert operational procedures became ever broader. The Federal Crime Bureau and the State Crime Bureaus in Baden-Württemberg and Hamburg became the first police forces to establish their own special divisions for fighting organized crime. Other detective divisions in the German states ultimately followed suit. Today, undercover or covert operations are a standard element of police activity. Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP takes a close look at each of these methods. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
Now that the CILIP editorial staff has dealt in detail with specific aspects of domestic security in the Federal Republic of Germany over the past three years, the general question of ‚domestic security‘ policies once again comes under review – last but not least in as much as this is an important national election year and ‚domestic security‘ has or will play an important role in the elections to the European parliament and local and state elections throughout the country. Due to the fact that the performance records of each of the parties contending for election is to come under scrutiny, CILIP has made a conscious effort to engage the services of authors as distant as possible from party affiliations. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
In May of 1951 the first 1800 members of the recently created Federal Border Protection entered their barracks at St. Hubertus in the state of Slesvig-Holstein. Initially planned as a paramilitary command designed to fill the gap of the then non-existent West German Army (Bundeswehr), the tasks and as-signments of the command have changed over the years via becoming a pa-ramilitary police reserve unit on constant alert status for civil unrest to a multi-purpose federal police command. The command has lost but little of its military character. Civil Liberties and Police has gone to great effort to ca-talogue the broad range of added tasks and the changes which have been placed over the years within and around the Federal Border Guard. Summaries weiterlesen →

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. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
On July 1st a new “refugee policy compromise” has gone into effect in the FRG, arrived at by the governing coalition and the SPD opposition, which make refugee entry into the country more difficult. Refugees and persons who had entered the country illegally were immediately effected by this new legislation at midnight on the day it went into effect: more than 100 along Germany’s borders with Poland and the Czech Republic were expelled back across the border. This issue of CILIP is a sequel to the discussion of currently relevant right-wing radicalism and xenophobia in Germany which began last issue. Summaries weiterlesen →

An Editorial Comment
by Otto Diederichs
Right-wing extremist and/or racist motivated acts of violence have, unfortunately, long since ceased to be exceptional occurrences. In much the same manner as politicians and the courts, the police initially acted hesitatingly with regard to this new challenge. In the meantime, however, a number of initiatives have come into being of quite differing natures. CILIP has attempted to take a closer look at these activities and has also gone a step further in beginning to ask questions about right-wing attitudes and antagonistic sentiments toward aliens within the police themselves. Particularly the latter still appears to be taboo for the police.
As always at the beginning of a new year we also present our annual review of fatal police shootings from the previous year. Summaries weiterlesen →

Editorial
by Otto Diederichs
The FRG is far from being confronted with a situation such as revealed in the USA in a study presented by the National Institute of Justice according to which the more than one and a half million persons employed by private se-curity firms constitute nearly double the number of total members of police forces. Nevertheless private security firms are on the rise in Germany. And because, in contrast to other states, there has been little or no public discussion of these developments, this issue of CILIP attempts to present as many of the relevant facts on this topic (with reference to the situation in Germany) as possible in order to help the discussion to get under way. Summaries weiterlesen →