Internal safety: “Knife problem”? Now the SPD and FDP are making critical allegations in opposition to the Union | EUROtoday

Germany has a “knife problem,” says the federal chairman of the police union (GdP), Jochen Kopelke. With a view to knife crime, he calls, amongst different issues, for extra video surveillance and the elevated use of contemporary applied sciences corresponding to synthetic intelligence.

Sebastian Hartmann, home coverage spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group within the Bundestag, informed WELT: “The chairman of the police union rightly points to the increased use of technical means to combat crime.” The most critical crimes may very well be dedicated via the usage of synthetic intelligence and the comparability of biometric knowledge with publicly accessible ones Data from the Internet may be considerably improved and investigations made simpler.

But, says Hartmann: “The CDU/CSU withheld precisely these powers from security authorities by blocking the federal government’s security package in the Bundesrat. We once again call on the Union not to continue blocking central security powers for election campaign reasons.” The assaults in Mannheim, Solingen and Magdeburg confirmed how critical the state of affairs is.

Konstantin Kuhle, vice-chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, additionally refers back to the “additional powers of the security authorities with regard to biometric facial recognition and automated data analysis” determined by the site visitors mild after the Solingen assault. He emphasizes: “Unfortunately, these changes in the Federal Council have failed due to the CDU and CSU.” Before new powers are demanded, mentioned Kuhle, “existing powers should be applied or there should be a rapid implementation of the political agreement after the terrorist attack in Solingen.”

Would extra surveillance choices have prevented the knife assault in Solingen in August? In any case, this may have been achieved by deporting the perpetrator in a well timed method, which was presupposed to happen in 2023 however didn’t occur. Otherwise, knife assaults may probably be prevented acutely via so-called weapon ban zones, wherein it’s meant to make sure that nobody carries a stabbing weapon with them. But: “In order to implement checks in weapons ban zones across the board and really effectively, regardless of suspicion, there are not enough police officers,” says police union member Kopelke.

“The legal rules with regard to weapon ban zones and knives were only recently tightened after the terrorist attack in Solingen,” mentioned FDP parliamentary group deputy Kuhle. The weapons regulation, which has been tightened by the site visitors mild, now states that the ban on carrying weapons at folks festivals or sporting occasions additionally expressly applies to knives. Kuhle warned: The experiences of the municipalities and the safety authorities ought to first be compiled and evaluated with a view to those new guidelines, “before you reflexively call for new tightening measures”.

There are not any overview figures on knife crime in 2024 but. According to police crime statistics, a complete of 8,951 instances of harmful and critical bodily hurt utilizing knives have been registered in 2023. This means a rise of 9.7 % in comparison with the earlier yr.

“It’s not the knives that are the problem, it’s the people”

The deputy chairwoman of the Union parliamentary group, Andrea Lindholz (CSU), informed WELT that the state should get knife crime underneath management. The Union is subsequently demanding, amongst different issues, In the long run, bodily hurt with a knife will likely be instantly punished as a criminal offense.

Specifically, this implies: If a knife is concerned, the punishment must be extra extreme, whatever the consequence of the crime. To this finish, the Union desires to take away bodily hurt utilizing a weapon or knife from Section 224 Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code and improve it to a criminal offense in a brand new paragraph. By rising the penalty vary to between one and 15 years’ imprisonment, the evaluation of knife offenses as critical injustice must be made extra clear within the sentencing construction. According to Lindholz, the courts would subsequently have extra room for maneuver. “But this should not obscure the fact that it is not the knives that are the problem, but the people who use them.”

Lindholz additionally mentioned that she “agrees with Mr. Kopelke that security authorities need modern powers. This includes IP address data storage and electronic facial recognition using AI.” Weapons ban zones “definitely make sense, but what is even more important is the police presence and that these bans are monitored.” Video surveillance, for instance, would supply an actual benefit for the federal police in significantly polluted locations, corresponding to practice stations, in response to the Union politician.

AfD home politician Martin Hess additionally informed WELT that felony regulation have to be tightened; The AfD additionally desires to explicitly deal with and punish the knife homicide weapon within the felony code. But Hess additionally emphasised: “Anyone who wants to effectively combat the exploding violent and knife crime must finally acknowledge that this increase is primarily due to a completely misguided migration policy and that this must therefore be corrected immediately.” If that doesn’t occur and would “ If “illegally resident foreigners” aren’t persistently deported, no enchancment within the safety state of affairs in Germany may be anticipated. “All other measures” are “purely combating symptoms”.

The Federal Criminal Police Office’s Police Crime Statistics (PKS) doesn’t report any knowledge on the migration background of the suspects. However, some federal states publish their very own statistics that comprise such info. According to the “Media Service Integration” platform, relying on the federal state, between a 3rd and half of all knife crimes may be traced again to overseas perpetrators. Accordingly, foreigners are overrepresented among the many suspects. The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior reported, for instance, that of two,922 suspects in knife assaults in 2023, 55.2 % have been with out German citizenship.

BSW is essential of prohibition zones

Martina Renner, spokeswoman for home coverage for the Left group within the Bundestag, criticized requires stricter surveillance measures. “The expected lament from the GdP federal chairman,” says Renner, “triggers the usual emotional switches: Carrying knives is already completely banned in many cases. Because such prohibitive laws primarily mean work for the police and regulatory authorities, Mr. Kopelke would like something with video surveillance and AI predictions. But that distracts from “mistakes by the police forces at the Christmas market in Magdeburg and by the investigative authorities before the attack.” Cameras and artificial intelligence did not prevent knife attacks. Instead, “classic police work is needed to identify perpetrators with appropriate motivations at an early stage, regardless of train stations, Christmas markets and the origin of the perpetrator.”

The safety coverage spokesman for the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), Klaus Ernst, informed WELT that “the right approach” to stopping knife crime is “increasing police presence while simultaneously using target group-specific mobile control and monitoring units.” Video surveillance in crime-prone areas may very well be an “important complementary measure”, and in “selected areas” an “automated video evaluation is also suitable”.

However, the BSW sees the knife ban zones anchored within the gun regulation by the site visitors mild as “critical”. They aren’t “accurate” and troublesome to manage. In addition, in response to Ernst, controls impartial of suspicion “massively interfere with the civil liberties of the large mass of law-abiding citizens – while potential perpetrators know and avoid these zones. None of the tragic knife attacks we experienced would have been prevented by such measures.”

When requested, WELT didn’t obtain an announcement from the Green parliamentary group.

Political editor Jan Alexander Casper reviews on home politics for WELT.

Nicolas Walter is a volunteer at WELT. Among different issues, he reviews on overseas coverage, migration and political extremism.