Talk:Law enforcement in Germany

"Judiciary" and "Training" sections
"Germany has a civil law system based on Roman law mixed with traditional Germanic law." -->This is a simple misstatement. The German law system is indeed based on some basic democratic principles derived from Roman law, such as legal security, equality and Rome's basic understanding of a division of powers. However, it does not have any "traditional Germanic roots" (Which would turn out to be very difficult as there are NO written records about law practices by any tribes living in the area that now is Germany. Also, the Germanen were only one of the many tribes that lived in the area east of the river Rhein) The German law system was mainly influenced by various law philosophies and legal systems of other European countries such as GB or France but also by the USA after WW I and II.

Training Section: Seems fairly tendentious and outdated: German police officers undergo a training of up to three years and prove to be one of the most efficient non-lethal police forces in the western world. Furthermore, it would be interesting to know, whether there is any reliable source besides the editor of this article who describes the German police force as "understaffed, undertrained, poorly equipped, and woefully unprepared."

I would suggest removing the adressed parts of the paragraphs until corrected. --2001:A61:30A6:7E01:1DDF:81B4:49D0:8DE4 (talk) 22:46, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, the section on 'Judiciary' is not really relevant to the scope of this article, which is law enforcement, not criminal justice in general. According to Wiktionary, that means "prevention of crime and apprehension of criminals", which the courts do not do; they simply decide the judgment of those brought before them. Therefore, while this information may be appropriate for articles on German law, I do not believe it belongs in an article on German policing. Spelling Ninja strikes again! (talk) 16:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

"Off duty carry"
"Carry" as a verb to mean "having possession of a firearm" is a regional variation and not encyclopaedic. Better perhaps would be "Off duty firearms" - but in any case it would be useful to have a section on firearms generally, as the use of firearms by police forces is something which varies around the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.159.203.207 (talk) 16:37, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

Untitled
The translations should be also in because the statet police types have certain names in german

Bereitschaftspolizei Wasserpolizei German Federal Police or Bundesgrenzschutz --Stone 08:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Category:Law enforcement agencies of Germany is also worth linking to get all the things mentioned!--Stone 08:47, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Worthwhile additions?
"The public prosecutor's office The Staatsanwaltschaft (public prosecutor’s office) is responsible for reviewing police investigations and handling criminal prosecutions. [edit] Violations of human rights

Despite isolated reports of abuses of police detainees, Germany's police generally respect individual human rights. For further information, see: Human rights in Germany"

Are these worth including? They seem suggestive (especially the latter) of some sort of dispute, but there's so little content i can't make heads nor tails of it. Either they need to be fleshed out, i feel, or deleted. Archtemplar 06:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems that the "Human Rights" section is unnecessary, until there are some incidences of Human Rights abuses whihc can be added and verified, or maybe a report on Human rights in Germany is published. Until there is something worth mentioning which comes from 3rd party news sources. -Toon05 14:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I took it out, now that it's been added with clearly POV and unencyclopedic words. We need to find more reliable informations if we wish to really start that section again. 石川 (talk) 07:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Good for you. That section really did not serve a great purpose. Robbie69 (talk) 14:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Federal Police
It is not quite accurate to state that the "paramilitary border patrol" was renamed "Federal Police", because a bit before that, the railway police, which in the course of privatization of the railway system could not be operated anymore by the Deutsche Bahn AG (not being a government institution anymore, albeit still largely government owned) was integrated into the Border Patrol. As such, the agency was far from paramilitary in many parts already and the renaming was not the least a consequence of that integration. --OliverH 18:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm somewhat doubtful that the Bundespolizei actively participates in acquiring intelligence. To my knowledge, the police forces are prohibited by law from doing that (safe, of course, for criminal intelligence, I suppose; the borders are blurred); they do, however, cooperate closely with the federal and state-level intelligence agencies, such as the Verfassungsschutz (on the federal as well as the state level), the Bundesnachrichtendienst and others. I reckon there was a somewhat heated debate whether to barriers between police service and intelligence agencies should fall. This needs clarifying, I think.


 * By the way, the paramilitary notion (combatant status) of the Bundesgrenzschutz was abolished in 1994.

Cheers, Something Wicked 23:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

You are right, the Federal Police, like all state Bepos who had it, lost their combatant status after the renunification, but their paramilitary status? I don't think so. We can discuss if they are able to fight back a thread against the constitution, but this is still one of theire missions. ReinickendorferFuchs (talk) 10:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey, the "bundespolizei" is definitly not an intelligence, this is absolutely wrong, therefore we have the "bundesnachrichtendienst". The intelligence is clearly seperated from the bundespolzei. You should read the german version http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespolizei_(Deutschland)

unclear article
this article is unclear if not a mess. it should be made clear from the very beginning: constitionally, germany has no federal police comparable to the fbi or rcmp, even though there is a police force called "bundespolizei" (federal police). this force is the former border police (borders being under federal jurisdiction) amalgamated with the former "train police" (also under federal jursidiction). the border police kind of went through an identity crisis because of the disappearing traditional border duties due to european integration. germany has no more "outside" borders. the federal police has very special and limited powers which the states carefully keep an eye on. they are still responsible for "border matters", e. g. at airports, you see them at larger train stations and they do customs checks on highways. they also scan the border areas for illegal immigrants, especially to the east. in any case they do not do ordinary police work. by constituion the police in germany is solely vested in the jursitdiction of the states. there also is no county or city police. in order to coordinate the state police forces, when it comes to crimes across state borders and for certain levels of crime the states have a "landeskriminalamt" (state crimes bureau), again coordinated by the "bundeskriminalamt" (federal crimes bureau). there are only state prisons, no federal prisons.--Sundar1 (talk) 13:04, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you feel that the second sentence of the entire article ("the German constitution devolves most power to the states in the area of law enforcement with only specific missions of a national and international nature being assigned to the federation") doesn't cover it well enough, be bold and change it :) ninety:one  21:48, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Police of the Federal Diet
Edited some minor mistakes and added some informations. Sources: http://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/verwaltung/polizei/index.html ReinickendorferFuchs (talk) 10:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Career brackets
Edited the whole section because it was full of misiterpretations and wrong informations. For example: "Mittlerer Dienst" requires successful completion of 10 years of schooling, is trained mostly on-the-job and leads to the rank of Wachtmeister. Work in this career bracket is always done wearing a uniform and includes mostly patrolling and supporting the supervising Kommissar." Trained mostly on-the-job? Not in the meaning of learning by doing. The majority of time at the police academy is studying laws, the rest is practical training. Physical fitness, self-defense without weapons and with batons f.e., arresting techniques, firearms training etc. Practical training on "the street" with officers of several departments just take some weeks depending to the state. The most plain clothes units are manned with personel of the Schutzpolizei, not by the detective branch Kriminalpolizei. Most of them from "mittlerer Dienst". Confusing, isn't it? The three lowest ranks Polizeiwachtmeister, -oberwachtmeister and -hauptwachtmeister were disestablished in the mid eighties. "Police commissioner or Kommissar which is comparable to the rank of Detective in American law enforcement." (Polizei-/Kriminal-) Kommisar means nothing else than (second) lieutenant, in Germany there is no rank like a detective. Beside my own experiences as a police officer you can find verifiable sources at the websites of the German police agencies (linked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencies_in_Germany ), http://www.dhpol.de/en/index.php, or f.e. http://www.german-police.de/board/index.php (you have to register, it's a board in German but English speaking guests are wellcome). ReinickendorferFuchs (talk) 10:38, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Femal officers in the alert police
"Women are not, however, included in units of the Alert Police." This is nonsense. Since the (mid) eigthies, women serves in all branches of the German police except the SEK's/GSG9. Since circa 2005 we have definitely a female chief of a alert police company (Bereitschaftspolizei-Hundertschaft) in Berlin. ReinickendorferFuchs (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Sonderwagen
Sonderwagen (SW) are light armored vehicles, APCs except the SW III based on the MB G-Class, all of them had light all terrain abillity (4x4). The only 6x6 SW was the M8 Light Armored Car "Greyhound". http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderwagen. None of the different types of SWs were made especially for riot control duty but the SW4 (TM170) f.e. is used with a dozer blade to clear burning barricades. ReinickendorferFuchs (talk) 18:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

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