BIW on public safety

The BIW calls for a consensus against political and religious extremism alike and accuses the Senate of playing down left-wing radicalism. Islamist and Salafist activities are to be fought with every means available under the rule of law.

The BIW opposes all extremism. That means political and religious extremism. The state should fight Islamists with all legal means. Politicians should only talk with Muslim groups that respect the constitution.

In the platform's view, the current Senate is too lenient toward left-wing radicalism, and that should end. The BIW considers dialogue with Islam necessary. Only Muslim associations that commit to Germany's free democratic basic order should take part.

The BIW wants to grow the police to 3,000 officers in Bremen and 550 in Bremerhaven and return to neighborhood-based precincts. Under the motto "zero tolerance," the state is to step in consistently even for minor offenses.

The BIW wants more police officers in Bremen and Bremerhaven. Every district should have a police station again. Stations should be open day and night. Police should act even on small offenses.

The BIW rejects the 2017 police reform; all precincts are to be open around the clock, backed by mobile stations in high-crime residential areas. Extra administrative staff would relieve officers of paperwork, and the stop receipt issued during police checks would be scrapped. Non-police tasks such as escorting heavy transports would go to private firms or volunteers. The platform demands tough action against criminal members of Kurdish-Arab clans, including close cooperation between police and domestic intelligence. Those who cause police operations, such as commercial mega-events, should generally bear the cost.

The BIW wants to build a volunteer security patrol of suitable citizens, modeled on Bavaria and Saxony. It is meant to relieve the police of simple tasks and increase the state's visible presence through patrols.

The BIW wants a security patrol. These are volunteer citizens who help the police. They take on simple tasks. They also walk patrols.

The platform lists guarding buildings, recording traffic accidents, and securing traffic near schools and kindergartens as tasks. Members would also serve as local contacts for residents. In the BIW's view, their patrols deter potential offenders and curb crime.

The BIW wants Bremen to push in the Bundesrat for doubling the minimum sentence for resisting law enforcement officers. Patrol officers are to get Tasers and body cameras for their own protection.

People who attack police officers should get harsher sentences. The minimum sentence should be 12 months instead of 6. Patrol officers should get Tasers. A Taser is an electric stun device. They should also wear body cameras.

According to the platform, attacks on police and other enforcement officers, for example in prisons, should be prosecuted strictly and sentenced using the full range the law allows. Tightening the offense requires federal action, so the Senate is to take the initiative in the Bundesrat. All officers on patrol duty would be equipped with conducted energy devices and body cameras.

The BIW wants to do more to stop crimes before they happen. To that end, it wants more cameras in high-crime locations and methods such as predictive policing.

The BIW wants to stop crimes before they happen. Dangerous places should get more cameras. Computers should tell police where crimes are likely. Children should learn to settle fights without violence.

Cameras are meant to deter offenders and make investigations easier. Predictive policing means analyzing data to forecast likely crime locations and times. The platform also counts teaching values in daycare and schools and practicing nonviolent conflict resolution as prevention. Littering in public spaces is to be met with more checks and higher fines; people who spray graffiti on buildings should be punished and pay for the cleanup.

The BIW opposes legalizing cannabis and wants to cap the amount exempt from prosecution at six grams. Possession of hard drugs would always be prosecuted, and open drug scenes would not be tolerated. The guiding principle is abstinence rather than substitutes.

The BIW is against legal cannabis. Only up to 6 grams should go unpunished. Hard drugs should always lead to a case. The BIW wants fewer substitute drugs like methadone. Instead there should be more therapy.

Gathering spots for dealers and users, specifically at the main station, in the Neustadt district, and in the Viertel, are to be broken up; people from elsewhere picked up there would be returned to their home municipalities. For heroin, cocaine, or ecstasy, prosecutors would have to act regardless of the amount. The BIW rejects state-supplied heroin. Substitution with methadone and similar drugs would be phased down because the platform says it prolongs addiction, while therapy capacity would be expanded.

The BIW wants to relieve hunters and sport shooters of fees and frequent inspections. Authorities should instead focus on illegal weapons, which the platform sees as the real danger.

Hunters and sport shooters own legal guns. The BIW wants to burden them less. A fee for inspections should be dropped. Police should deal with illegal weapons instead.

The BIW rejects a gun tax, and the inspection fee introduced in 2012 would be abolished. Inspections without cause would happen less often if the previous check found nothing wrong. Law enforcement should direct its efforts at illegal firearms and knives.

The BIW wants sentences to be based mainly on the harm to the victim and considers Bremen's courts too lenient. Juvenile repeat offenders would go to closed homes, early release would be the exception, and prisons would be more tightly controlled.

The BIW wants harsher sentences. The victim should matter more than the offender. Young people with many crimes should go to closed homes. Prisoners should get out early less often. Prison visitors should be checked closely.

A short "warning shot" detention would be possible for unrepentant young offenders; the BIW rejects adventure-education trips for them. Electronic ankle monitors would be used for white-collar offenders, in probation supervision, and to monitor Islamist threats and sex offenders at risk of reoffending. Release after two-thirds of a sentence would require very good conduct, and violent offenders would first have to complete anti-aggression training. Prisons would get security gates, sniffer dogs, and glass partitions, with medical treatment provided on site. A mandatory mediation procedure is meant to relieve the civil courts.