CDU on public safety

The CDU wants to add staff to the police, public prosecutors, courts and prisons. It plans to train more recruits and improve working conditions so that Hamburg can compete for new talent.

The CDU wants more staff for the police and the courts. Hamburg should train more people for these jobs. The staff should get better pay. The CDU hopes this will attract good new workers.

The platform plans to encourage more employees to retire later on a voluntary basis. Training is to be expanded for the police, the justice system and the prison service. The special duty allowance for police and prison officers would count toward their pensions in the future. The CDU also calls for pay appropriate to the office and better chances of promotion. It justifies this with the growing demands on these institutions.

The CDU wants to modernize the technology of Hamburg's police. Uniformed officers are to receive tasers, bodycams and smartphones, among other things, and patrol cars are to be digitally connected.

The CDU wants to give the police new technology. This includes tasers. These are devices that use electric shocks from a distance. It also includes body cameras and smartphones. Patrol cars should get digital technology too.

The smartphones are meant to give officers access to search and information systems at the scene. They would also allow officers to process cases while on the move. The mobile applications are to be developed further on an ongoing basis. The platform names “digital patrol cars” as its goal, equipped with specialized police software and a direct link to the operations and situation center.

The CDU wants to strengthen the forensic science and technology division of the State Criminal Police Office (LKA). It plans more staff and resources, a new building with laboratories, and greater use of specialized software and artificial intelligence.

Forensic experts examine traces left by crimes. Examples are fingerprints, blood or weapons. The CDU wants a new building with labs for this work. It also wants more staff and more computer programs.

According to the platform, many crimes are only solved or proven through scientific and technical findings. The responsible division, LKA 3, examines items such as weapons, forged documents, drugs, DNA traces and fingerprints. A new building is to provide suitable laboratory standards and enough space. In addition, work at the LKA is to be automated more through specialized software and AI.

The CDU wants more uniformed police and community officers on Hamburg's streets, including outside the city center. To relieve officers, more civilian police employees are to be trained and additional mobile police stations set up.

The CDU wants more police on the streets. This should apply to the whole city. Civilian employees should take over simple tasks from police officers. There should also be more mobile police stations.

The platform justifies the demand with what the CDU sees as too many crimes and a low sense of safety among many people. Civilian police employees are to take on tasks such as guarding buildings, checking parked vehicles and helping with traffic control. The CDU wants to train more of them and keep them longer, because many leave the job again. Mobile police stations are to be added at suitable locations so that police can respond to crime hot spots.

The CDU wants to adapt the legal powers of the security authorities to the digital world. This includes more undercover investigations online, source telecommunications surveillance, remote searches of devices, data retention and the removal of data protection obstacles.

The CDU wants to give the police and the domestic intelligence service more powers. They should be able to investigate better on the internet. They should be allowed to secretly search suspects' computers and phones. Connection data should be stored in advance. Data protection rules should stand in the way less often.

At the federal level, the CDU wants to push for the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure to be adapted further to digital change. Data retention is to be used against serious crimes such as child abuse and organized crime. In Hamburg, the laws governing the police and the domestic intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) are to be changed, and police law is to get a legal basis for remote searches of devices. The intelligence service should be better able to track down extremists and potential attackers in the digital sphere. Under the principle that data protection must not protect offenders, authorities should find it easier to store and share data on criminals and potential attackers.

The CDU wants to raise the maximum length of preventive detention in Hamburg from ten to 30 days. This is aimed mainly at people planning terrorist or extremist attacks.

The police may hold people as a precaution if they plan a serious crime. This is called preventive detention. Today it can last ten days at most. The CDU wants to allow 30 days. This is meant to protect against attacks.

Preventive detention means that the police hold someone in order to stop an imminent crime. The platform points to the case of Anis Amri and to the fact that potential attackers operate across state borders. The longer period is meant to help respond to the threat level and better protect the public from terrorist attacks.

The CDU wants to introduce weapon-free zones and video surveillance at more high-crime locations, such as Steindamm and the Phoenix-Viertel neighborhood. Cameras with software that detects behavior patterns are to be used more widely. Certain groups of offenders are to be banned from owning weapons.

The CDU wants to ban weapons in more places. There should also be cameras there. Some cameras should spot dangerous behavior on their own. A person then checks the video. Certain offenders should no longer be allowed to own weapons.

The platform considers the existing surveillance and weapon-free zone at the main train station insufficient. The CDU describes video protection as occasion-based, time-limited observation that helps identify suspects and deters crime. In the smart version, software recognizes typical patterns that point to a crime or a danger and passes the footage to a person for review. Repeat offenders, potential attackers and offenders with noticeable mental health problems are to be barred from owning weapons, and compliance is to be checked.

The CDU wants a zero-tolerance strategy against clans and organized crime. It plans a situation report on clan crime, more staff, joint operations by several agencies and faster confiscation of assets.

The CDU wants tougher action against criminal clans and gangs. The city should record exactly what clans own. Police, customs and local offices should carry out more joint checks. The state should take money and expensive cars from offenders more quickly.

Following the model of North Rhine-Westphalia, a situation report is to reveal the real estate, businesses and shareholdings of known clan members. The units responsible for organized crime are to get more staff and modern research systems. Gambling supervision is to be strengthened, staff in the police, tax offices and district offices trained, and a coordination office for joint operations created. Even minor violations are to be prosecuted consistently. The CDU wants to make it easier to confiscate assets, expensive cars and driver's licenses.

The CDU is pushing for children to be criminally responsible from age 12 for serious crimes. It also wants Hamburg to have its own places in secure educational facilities, more prevention lessons and a review of the Juvenile Courts Act.

Today children can only be punished from age 14. The CDU wants this from age 12 for serious crimes. This means crimes such as murder or manslaughter. Hamburg should have its own secure homes for children who commit many offenses. Schools should teach more about violence and crime.

The lower age limit is not meant for petty offenses but for capital crimes and other serious offenses. The platform points to the Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland, which have a limit of twelve, and to countries with a limit of ten. Mandatory prevention lessons in grades 5 to 8 are to be expanded and supplemented by projects such as “Gefangene helfen Jugendlichen” (prisoners help young people). Because, according to the platform, young adults in Hamburg are sentenced under juvenile law especially often, the CDU wants the rules in the Juvenile Courts Act reviewed at the federal level.

The CDU wants to strengthen the police and public prosecutors with staff and technology to fight crimes committed online. It plans further training, dedicated career tracks for IT investigators and digital crime reporting.

More and more crimes happen on the internet. The CDU wants more experts for this in the police and the prosecutor's office. There should be special career paths for computer investigators. People should be able to report such crimes easily online.

The platform considers the resources of the specialized cybercrime unit and the responsible department of the public prosecutor's office inadequate. IT specialists are to get suitable pay and promotion prospects. The prosecutor's office is to be expanded, partly because the CDU regards a single AI specialist position for child pornography cases as too little. Reports are to be taken interactively and digitally, with AI support where appropriate, so that digital evidence is secured quickly and all necessary information is collected.

The CDU wants to work closely with people with a migration background to take action against criminals, extremists and enemies of the constitution. They are to be punished and, where possible, expelled.

The CDU wants to work together with immigrants. Together they should act against criminals and extremists. These offenders should be punished. Where possible, they should have to leave Germany.

The platform argues that many immigrants themselves suffer from crime, extremism and terror. On top of that, it says, they face growing mistrust in everyday life or rejection of their religion. According to the CDU, persecuted refugees and well-integrated immigrants should not bear the consequences of a misunderstood liberalism.

The CDU wants to rebuild the district public order service that was dissolved in 2014. It is to penalize minor offenses, act against neglect in public spaces and relieve the police. Better street lighting and quick removal of graffiti are also planned.

The districts used to have a public order service. The CDU wants to bring it back. It should watch over rules in streets and parks. That gives the police more time for other tasks. Dark paths should get better lighting.

The service is to be organized locally in the districts and also include the dog control service. According to the CDU, since it was dissolved there has been a lack of staff to act against minor offenses, unauthorized camps in public spaces and aggressive begging. The mere presence of the service is expected to prevent violations. Energy-saving lamps are to be used to light dark squares and paths.

The CDU wants to shorten the time between a crime and the verdict. To do so, prosecutors and courts are to get more staff, and the accelerated procedure under the Code of Criminal Procedure is to be used more often.

A lot of time often passes between a crime and the verdict. The CDU wants to change that. Courts and prosecutors should get more staff. Suitable cases should go through a fast procedure.

According to the platform, months or years often pass in Hamburg between a crime and a conviction. It says this weakens the educational effect on young offenders, burdens victims and witnesses, and can benefit offenders, for example when suspects have to be released from pretrial detention. The accelerated procedure under sections 417 ff. of the Code of Criminal Procedure is to be applied to suitable groups of cases through better processes and closer coordination among the agencies involved. As examples, the CDU names climate activists who glue themselves to roads and suspects in the New Year's Eve riots.

The CDU wants to expand victim protection. The victim protection commissioner is to be responsible for all victims of crime and violence, and a fund is to pay damages and compensation for pain and suffering when offenders cannot pay.

The CDU wants to give more help to victims of crime. One central office should advise all victims. A fund should pay victims when the offender has no money. The fund later gets the money back from the offender.

According to the platform, the victim protection commissioner is currently limited to terror attacks and major disasters. In the future, the office is also to bundle support services, connect victim support organizations and improve witness support and psychological assistance during trials. At the federal level, the CDU wants victims to be able to assert civil claims directly in criminal trials against juvenile offenders as well, and to make it easier to join as a private co-plaintiff. Funding for victim-offender mediation is to increase. The new fund is to reclaim the amounts it advances from convicted offenders or have them worked off through community service.

The CDU wants to create additional places in the Maßregelvollzug (forensic psychiatric detention), which houses offenders with mental illness or addiction. In addition, prison places are to be reactivated in the regular prison system and more trainees recruited.

Some offenders are mentally ill or addicted. They go to a special secure facility. The CDU wants to create more places there. Prisons should also get more places and more staff.

According to the platform, forensic psychiatric detention has been overcrowded for years. As a result, people with a placement order often stay in the pretrial detention center for longer periods, which the platform calls unlawful and too much for the staff there. A closed unit with 33 places at the Billwerder prison is to reopen. Further places for male prisoners are to be examined. Better working conditions are meant to attract more people to train for the prison service.

The CDU wants to give state and federal security agencies additional powers against Islamism and step up online intelligence work. It argues that attack plots are often uncovered only through tips from foreign intelligence services and that young lone offenders radicalize online.

The CDU wants to do more against Islamism. Police and the domestic intelligence service should get more powers. The intelligence service should watch the internet more closely. Young people should get counseling online.

The domestic intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) is to be strengthened, also against sabotage and delegitimization attempts from abroad. Its new internet special unit on Islamism is to expand its work. Dual nationals who commit crimes are to lose their German citizenship. Following Bavaria's example, the CDU plans a "Digital Streetwork" pilot that offers young people confidential counseling online; the approach is also to be used against right-wing extremism, and existing exit programs will continue. People classified as potential attackers ("Gefährder") are to be monitored by electronic ankle tag more often.

The CDU wants to expand prevention and exit programs against left-wing extremism and teach about it in schools. It also calls for a joint database covering the left-wing extremist scene. It sees Hamburg as a stronghold of that scene and points to the riots at the 2017 G20 summit.

The CDU wants to do more against left-wing extremism. Schools should teach about the dangers. There should be more help for people who want to leave the scene. The authorities should collect data on the scene in one database.

The aim is for far fewer young people to join the scene. Teachers are to be trained to recognize a potential for political violence among students and respond to it. The proposed database would be modeled on the federal and state database on right-wing extremism and is meant to improve threat prevention and the agencies' resources. The platform cites the 2022 domestic intelligence report and lessons from the end of the Weimar democracy.

The CDU wants to better equip security agencies to fight antisemitism and to upgrade the office of the antisemitism commissioner. Other forms of hate crime are also to be recorded in statistics and prosecuted. Jewish life in Hamburg should be visible and safe.

The CDU wants to protect Jews in Hamburg better. The police should get more resources for this. The commissioner against hatred of Jews should get a stronger role. Hate against women, gay people and trans people should also be punished.

The agencies are to be able to act against antisemitism both preventively and through prosecution. The antisemitism commissioner should no longer do the job purely as a volunteer, and the office is to be expanded. Misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and other discrimination are to appear in the police crime statistics. The CDU wants to support the LGBTI* contact officers at the police and the public prosecutor's office and add more if case numbers rise.

The CDU wants to expand civil defense and disaster response in Hamburg with a dedicated push and an operations plan. It points to the changed threat situation since Russia's attack on Ukraine, to cyberattacks and to more frequent extreme weather.

The CDU wants to prepare Hamburg better for emergencies. This means war, attacks on computers and severe storms. There should be a fixed plan for such cases. Volunteers should be trained, and there should be more drills.

The plan includes training volunteers and designing protective shelters into new infrastructure projects that can serve other purposes in everyday life. Hamburg, the federal government, the Bundeswehr with its homeland security company and the aid organizations are to coordinate more closely. The CDU announces more exercises and better coordination. Disaster response organizations are to get more support, for example for flood operations.

The CDU says it will not tolerate political Islamism and wants to stop extremist religious activities. Hate preachers are to be expelled when the legal requirements are met.

The CDU wants to fight religious extremism. Extremists want to force their views on others. Hate preachers should have to leave Germany. This should apply when the law allows it.

The platform sees the political use of religion as a danger to the free democratic order. The CDU considers the closure of the Blue Mosque overdue. Those behind extremist activities are to be held accountable. The CDU wants to push for any legal clarifications needed at federal level and says this approach is also in the interest of Hamburg's Muslims who reject extremism.