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People who belong to visible minorities, the so-called PoC (people of color), are controlled by the police twice as often as members of the majority population. If there was violence during contacts with the police, 62 percent felt they had been discriminated against; the same applies to 42 percent of people with a migrant background.
This is the result of a special evaluation of the data from a study from the Ruhr University Bochum entitled “Physical injury in the office by police officers”, in which a team works around the criminologist Tobias Singelnstein.
The full study will run until 2021 and the final results will also be presented next year. Current experience (Title: Racism and experiences of discrimination in the context of police violence) With a view to racism, the Bochum team created the integration for the media service. 3,373 people were interviewed, plus 17 qualitative interviews.
According to this, 48 per cent of the PoCs surveyed stated that, from their point of view, their ethnic or cultural origin had influenced the way they were treated by police officers; Of those surveyed without this background, this was only three percent.
More than a quarter experienced police violence
About 80 percent of them and those interviewed with an immigration background stated that they had already been treated in a discriminatory manner by the police more than once. While most Germans claimed that their contacts with the police had specific reasons (controls at major events such as football matches, participation in a brawl, or disturbance of the peace), the PoC was attacked much more frequently without any apparent reason.
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More than a quarter of them (28 percent) said they had suffered violence from the police during an identity check. Of those with a migrant background, 22 percent said this, of the remaining only 14 percent.
Singelnstein and his team also interviewed police officers about such operations. Interviewees attributed “the increased potential for conflict and the consequent use of violence against blacks primarily to their behavior and alleged attitudes towards the police.”
However, the study is not representative. Singelnstein himself said when he presented it on Wednesday in Berlin that it essentially describes the perspective of those affected. “That was exactly the goal; so far, his perspective has hardly been noticed in the research.” The self-emergence of those affected is, however, very resilient “; they have daily experience with racism.
Most officials do not perceive operations as racist
In the Bochum group’s interviews with the other party, the police, it was also shown that they also approach so-called social hot spots differently than when they are deployed elsewhere. The research team warns: “In this way, a police practice that is based on (social) spaces can lead to discrimination against certain groups of people”, write the authors, together with Singlnstein, researchers Laila Abdul-Rahman, Hannah Espín Grau and Luise Klaus.
This is not only perceived “by PoCs and people with a migratory background (…) as a restriction in everyday life”; it could also lead to an intensification of “police-citizen interactions”. Qualitative interviews with female and male police officers showed, however, “according to the current state of the investigation, that officers often do not view their actions as racist,” the report says.
The survey also resulted in increased psychological stress for PoCs if they experienced police operations first-hand, which they experienced as discriminatory and in which, in their view, unjustified violence occurs.
[Mehr zum Thema: Wutbrief eines Ex-Polizisten – „Es gibt keinen strukturellen Rassismus bei der Berliner Polizei“]
When the report was released on Wednesday, Singelnstein said that the “discrepancy in perception” between officials who did not consider their own actions to be racist and the PoC in question, which had its own antennae for racism based on its daily experience, it made “communication naturally difficult.”
Singelnstein and fellow police sociologist Astrid Jacobsen therefore recommended further investigation. Beyond individual studies, “we have little to offer,” said Jacobsen, who is a professor at the Lower Saxony Police Academy and also trains potential police officers. Düsseldorf lawyer Blaise Francis El Mourabit, who voluntarily represents the PoC seeking help with police attacks, added: Many of those affected felt “a bit left out of politics” on this matter.
Presumably, civil society should not just wait, but should initiate the investigation itself. All three mentioned the long-standing resistance of the federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to a corresponding study. It comes now, but according to the will of the minister it should look at the whole of society and, conversely, address hatred and violence against the police.
“You need other laws”
El Mourabit, who works full-time for an international corporation, described his own experiences: if he is not wearing a business suit at Düsseldorf central station, but is wearing a jogging suit because he comes from sports, he is stopped “very regularly” .
At the age of 36 he was immediately used, once a patrol asked him to “take the drugs out directly.” It is not uncommon for your clients to experience that disrespect and accusations don’t stop, but instead follow the violence. When a client filmed an inspection for evidence, an officer pushed her so brutally that she passed out.
The lawyer believes that the lack of demonstrability is exactly a central problem in such situations and advocates other laws: the police must use body cameras during operations that could interfere with fundamental rights, and labeling is required at the national level for public officials. Officers wear a visible identification number on their uniform.
From the lawyer’s point of view, the civil service law cannot remain as it is: if there really is an assault during an identity check in court, “the court will establish that it was illegal. And that was it,” says El Mourabit. Instead, “clear sanctions are needed. An oral or written warning is not enough.”
What role does the AfD play?
Police investigator Jacobsen also advocated for empowering members of the police who are sensitive to abusive behavior and racism, including “negative esprit de corps.” There are already positive approaches to training, the police are also not “a” homogeneous “group, the police officers are very different, the level of education of young people has recently been higher and their familiarity with racism is stronger. Singelnstein spoke of a “delicate plant” of change.
On the other hand, the AfD has been consolidated, which has consequences “not only on the population but also on the police.” For example, the line between conservatism and right-wing extremism is blurring; “It had not yet been said” what consequences this would have for the police, which tended to have a “conservative structure”.
