CDU on public safety

The CDU wants to hire more police officers and relieve them of administrative work with 1,000 additional civilian employees. The requirement for officers to wear identification is to be abolished, and the police are to be equipped with Tasers.

The CDU wants to hire more police officers. 1,000 new employees should take over office work from the police. Officers should no longer have to wear an ID marking. The police get Tasers. These are devices that briefly stun a person with electricity.

The hiring is meant to offset retirements and add several hundred more officers; lateral and direct entry will be made easier. New positions are to come with higher pay grades A 12 and A 13, and the allowance for situation-based duty will rise. A central unit for police buildings is to speed up renovations. The CDU justifies abolishing the identification requirement with its trust in the police. On Tasers, the interior ministry's ongoing field trial will be taken into account.

The CDU wants more police presence, more checks and more effective orders to leave in city centers and crime hot spots. More and higher fines are to be imposed for littering and disturbances in public spaces.

The CDU wants more police in city centers. There should be more checks. Police should find it easier to send people away from a place. People who do not leave can more easily be taken into custody. People who leave trash should pay higher fines.

The plan calls for significantly more foot patrols and mounted police as well as more intensive checks. Custody is to be possible more often in order to enforce orders to leave and bans on staying in an area. Together with municipalities, the CDU wants to act more firmly against littering. Lighting and structural changes also play a role; the state wants to keep mobile lighting and video equipment ready for short-term use by municipalities.

The CDU wants to give the police additional powers by law. These include much stricter preventive custody, identity checks in a border strip and DNA analyses that determine the outward traits of unknown persons.

The CDU wants to make the police law stricter. Police should find it easier to hold dangerous people as a precaution. Near the border they should be allowed to check IDs. They should be allowed to work out a person's looks from DNA traces.

Preventive custody for troublemakers and persons considered dangerous is to be tightened significantly in order to prevent crimes. For a 30-kilometer strip along the state's external borders, the CDU calls for a legal basis for identity checks. Preventive DNA testing is to become possible for traces of unknown origin. It would determine traits such as sex, skin, hair and eye color, age and biogeographic origin.

The CDU wants to expand video surveillance of public places significantly and make AI-supported analysis the standard across the state. The software is meant to detect conspicuous behavior automatically and help with manhunts.

The CDU wants more cameras in public places. Police and towns should get more options for this. A computer program will analyze the images. It spots unusual behavior by itself. This should make people feel safer.

The platform justifies the expansion by saying the public sees cameras as a gain in security. Places where people feel unsafe are to disappear through more cameras alongside lighting concepts. The CDU also sees a need for more video technology at public assemblies and wants to examine whether the state needs its own assembly law for this.

The CDU wants to take on organized crime and clan structures, among other things with covert online searches and a reversed burden of proof for asset confiscation. The responsible agencies are to be pooled on the model of the state security center.

The CDU wants to fight criminal gangs and clans harder. Investigators should be allowed to search computers and phones secretly. Suspects should have to prove their money is legal. Otherwise the state can take it. The agencies should work together more closely.

Online searches are to supplement telecommunications surveillance and allow access to stored data; they are to be designed in line with the constitution. For organized crime, the CDU wants to pool responsibilities, improve information sharing and connect all those involved. For young offenders, it relies on faster criminal proceedings, better data exchange and more Häuser des Jugendrechts (joint juvenile justice centers). Specialized software is to speed up investigations into child abuse material.

The CDU wants to strengthen the state's Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence agency) and is examining an expansion of its powers. As an example, it cites covert access to computers and other IT systems in order to act against extremism of every kind.

The domestic intelligence agency watches enemies of democracy. The CDU wants to make it stronger. It is checking whether the agency may do more. For example, it should be allowed to access computers secretly. This is aimed at extremists of every kind.

The platform names Islamists as well as right-wing and left-wing extremists as threats. The expansion of the state agency's powers is subject to review. In addition, the CDU plans a security council for the state in which the government, heads of the security agencies, civil protection organizations, municipal associations and the Bundeswehr jointly assess situations and develop strategies.

The CDU wants to renew disaster response vehicles and expand warning infrastructure, including a siren network covering the whole state. Volunteer helpers from the various organizations are to be put on an equal footing.

The CDU wants better protection in disasters. Helpers get newer vehicles. There should be sirens everywhere in the state. Volunteer helpers should have equal rights. There should be regular drills.

Statewide coordination among all those involved is to improve with modern technology. A civil protection competence center with its own operations center, involving ministries, agencies, aid organizations and municipalities, is under review. Crisis plans are to be drawn up with municipalities as uniformly as possible but adapted to each region. Regular drills, including with European neighbors, are meant to improve cooperation. The CDU wants crimes against emergency and rescue workers prosecuted in fast-track proceedings.

The CDU wants to keep supporting municipalities with investments in fire trucks and fire stations and to keep the fire protection tax earmarked for that purpose. Volunteer responders are to be relieved through less red tape.

The CDU wants to keep supporting fire departments. Towns should get money for vehicles and buildings. Volunteers should have less paperwork. Applications should become simpler and digital.

Revenue from the fire protection tax is to remain reserved for fire services. Joint statewide purchasing of vehicles is to be expanded, and the age limit for volunteer firefighters is to be raised. In a pilot project, the CDU wants to test whether model plans provided by the state can make it easier to build small and mid-sized fire stations. For volunteers, the program plans digital application and reimbursement procedures, flat-rate compensation and statewide bulk tenders. Aid organizations are to get support in recruiting new members.

The CDU wants to prepare the state better for war and disasters. It plans a new concept for shelters, stockpiles of emergency goods and a new funding priority for civil defense in cities and towns.

The CDU wants to prepare the state better for disasters and war. There should be a new plan for shelters. Each administrative district should have a store of emergency supplies. Students should learn first aid and disaster protection.

The shelter concept is to include existing infrastructure, and enough hospital capacity is to be kept ready for emergencies. Each administrative district is to get a central depot for emergency resources and critical goods. Campaigns, events and information platforms are meant to help people prepare for themselves, and civil protection and first aid are to become part of school lessons. Within the state's funding programs for municipalities, the CDU wants to add a priority called "Städtebaulicher Zivilschutz" (civil defense in urban planning), for example for shelters, security-minded design of public spaces and local security concepts. The program justifies this with military, terrorist and hybrid threats.

The CDU wants to give victims of violence, abuse and other crimes more legal, psychological and social support. Offenders are to bear more responsibility for the consequences of their acts.

The CDU wants to help crime victims more. They should get advice and protection. Offenders should have to make up for the harm. The state should stand on the side of victims.

Police, the justice system and social services are to work together more closely. Access to victim counseling centers and women's shelters is to be secured. For offenders, the program gives mandatory restitution and strict enforcement of court-imposed conditions as examples. The CDU sums this up with the principle that protecting victims comes before protecting offenders.

The CDU wants to give prisons more staff, modern equipment and digital assistance systems. Rehabilitation is to begin during custody, while the party also holds that prison must punish and deter.

The CDU wants more staff for prisons. The technology should be more modern. Prisoners should learn to live without crime later. But prison should also deter people.

According to the program, the safety of prison staff has priority. Reintegration is to continue beyond the prison term and be carried out together with independent offender support organizations. The program names "Schwitzen statt Sitzen" (community service instead of jail for unpaid fines) and outreach social work. Prison is also meant to protect the general public.