FDP on public safety

The FDP wants to hire 1,500 additional police officers by 2027 and relieve the police of administrative work. The profession is to become more attractive through new entry routes, better promotion prospects and a police allowance that counts toward pensions.

The FDP wants more police in Hesse. By 2027 there should be 1,500 more officers. They should have less paperwork. People with a mid-level school diploma should be able to join the police again. The job should pay better.

The platform justifies the extra positions with everyday crime such as theft, assault and burglary; the "Schutzmann vor Ort" (local beat officer) program is to grow. Documentation duties are to be cut to what the rule of law requires, and more administrative staff are to handle clerical work and data processing. Mergers of training institutions, stations and service units are to be examined, as is handing tasks to municipal public order offices, without privatizing sovereign duties. The volunteer police service is to be critically reviewed. A new job profile of police administrative assistant would let graduates of Realschule (mid-level secondary school) enter and later move into regular police service. Career tracks are to be reorganized, the allowance system revised and the police allowance made pensionable.

The FDP wants to modernize the Hessian police digitally and improve its equipment. Every patrol car is to get mobile devices, police apps and a Taser. The aim is to keep pace with specialized offenders and make the police a more attractive employer.

The FDP wants to make the police more modern. Every patrol car should have mobile devices with police apps. Every car should also carry a Taser. A Taser is a device that briefly stuns a person with electricity. The police should get more experts on internet crime.

The central office for combating internet crime (ZIT) and cybersecurity research, for example at the CASED center in Darmstadt, are to be strengthened. Officers should be able to access all information in the field and record incidents digitally right away. The FDP rules out job cuts in police administration or among sworn officers. Outside experts should be brought in more often, for instance to analyze data or financial flows. Taser use is to become a mandatory part of training, with regular refresher courses. Mobile working is to be promoted where duty allows.

The FDP rejects more technical surveillance, including government spyware, mass monitoring of private communication and blanket video surveillance without cause. Existing surveillance is to be independently evaluated and disclosed each year in an overall account.

The FDP does not want more surveillance by the state. The state should not read private messages on a mass scale. Cameras should only be at a few dangerous places. Each year a report should show how much the state has monitored.

The party also rejects searches of private cloud content. The annual surveillance account is to list telecom interceptions, online searches and installed cameras, along with the investigative results they produced. The FDP wants to follow predictive policing critically; it must comply with data protection and serve only as a tool, though it could help against burglaries. Cameras at crime hot spots should be allowed only after a strict proportionality check. Footage with no criminal content should be overwritten after a short time, for example after 48 hours at most.

The FDP wants investigators to be allowed to read a perpetrator's outward traits and origin from DNA traces. This would apply only to the most serious crimes and, according to the platform, would speed up manhunts and clear innocent people.

Police often find DNA traces at a crime scene. The FDP wants police to learn more from them. For example hair, eye and skin color and a person's origin. This should apply only to very serious crimes.

As examples of such crimes the platform lists murder, manslaughter and serious sexual offenses. The FDP expects faster results in searches for suspects. At the same time, uninvolved people should come under investigators' scrutiny less often.

The FDP announces a new law for the Verfassungsschutz (state domestic intelligence agency) that implements the recommendations of a cross-party expert commission. Its core is stronger oversight of the agency by the state parliament.

The Verfassungsschutz is the state's domestic intelligence agency. The FDP wants a new law for it. The state parliament should be able to check the agency better. Staff should be allowed to report problems directly to lawmakers.

The parliamentary oversight commission is to be able to summon agency employees and launch its own inquiries. Agency staff should be able to turn directly to the commission on official matters, which the platform calls a whistleblower rule. Commission members should be allowed to involve their own staff and speak confidentially with their parliamentary group leader. Training standards are to follow the federal law.

The FDP wants to improve conditions for the largely volunteer forces in fire protection and disaster response. This includes more flexible age limits, less red tape and more funding for vehicles, equipment and buildings.

Many people help in the fire service as volunteers. The FDP wants to make their work easier. Fit older people should be allowed to stay longer. There should be more money for vehicles and equipment. Fire crews should have to write fewer reports.

The special fire service driver's license is to be easier to obtain, and members with limited fitness for duty should be able to take part flexibly. The state fire academy is to get modern equipment; training, for example for drivers of emergency vehicles, is to be offered together with professional fire departments and the police. Reporting duties to the interior ministry are to be cut to a minimum. Fire crews should again be legally allowed to use warning devices that direct traffic at accident sites. Joint purchasing of uniform equipment across municipal lines is to receive particular support.

The FDP wants a state law to define when and where weapon-free zones are permitted and which items they cover. This is meant to give municipalities legal certainty and prevent disproportionate interference with fundamental rights.

In some areas people may not carry weapons. The FDP wants a clear law for this in Hesse. The law should say where such zones are allowed. It should also say what counts as a weapon.

The law is to spell out the conditions, the possible locations and the definition of the weapons covered. Towns and cities would then know reliably what they may order. Citizens are to be protected from excessive interference with their fundamental rights.

Alongside the official police crime statistics, the FDP wants regular research into how many crimes never come to the attention of the police. This is meant to give a more accurate picture of actual crime that policymakers can respond to early.

Each year the police count crimes. But the police never hear about many crimes. The FDP wants a study to research these crimes. The study should be repeated again and again. Universities should help with it.

The crime statistics only capture offenses the police learn about. The research is to be designed as a long-term study that shows changes over the years. The FDP wants to use it to better evaluate policy measures. Hessian colleges and universities are to be closely involved.

The FDP wants to act equally against right-wing, left-wing and Islamist extremism, through prevention and prosecution. It wants to examine several measures for the police, the justice system and domestic intelligence and to set up a parliamentary study commission. Antisemitism, including the demonization of Israel, is to be fought firmly.

The FDP wants to act against all kinds of extremism. This applies to right-wing, left-wing and Islamist groups. There should be programs that keep people away from extremism. Right-wing extremists should not be allowed to have weapons. The FDP wants to fight hatred of Jews with education and punishment.

The work of Hesse's information and competence center against extremism (HKE) and the programs run with the Violence Prevention Network are to continue; an expansion will be examined. Also under review are specialized units for right-wing extremism in the police and prosecutors' offices, security vetting for new police recruits, more staff especially at the state domestic intelligence office, and more protection for synagogues and mosques. Anyone belonging to the far-right scene, such as the "Reichsbürger" movement, should be deemed unfit to hold weapons. A program against left-wing extremism is to receive extra money, and existing programs are to be reviewed in light of climate protests prone to violence. After the murder of Walter Lübcke and the Hanau attack, the study commission is to analyze existing offerings. The FDP calls Israel's right to exist a non-negotiable reason of state.

The FDP wants to raise fees for police operations at unlawful protests such as road blockades so that they cover the costs. At major events, by contrast, individual troublemakers rather than organizers or clubs should pay.

Some people glue themselves to roads as a protest. The police then have to remove them, and that costs a lot. The FDP wants these people to pay more for it. At soccer games, clubs should not pay for the police. The people who use violence should pay.

According to the platform, current fees do not cover the effort, for example when glued hands have to be cut out of the road surface. The cost rules are therefore to be revised. The FDP rejects making organizers share police costs, citing the state's monopoly on the use of force. Violent offenders are to be identified more consistently, together with clubs and fan groups, and charged for costs. The party considers mandatory travel routes for visiting fans disproportionate.

The FDP wants Hessian police law to allow people classified as dangerous ("Gefährder") to be monitored with an electronic ankle bracelet on a judge's order. It sees this as a contribution to security and a milder intrusion than constant observation by officers.

"Gefährder" are people the police believe could commit serious attacks. The FDP wants to monitor them with an ankle bracelet. This is a device on the leg that reports where a person is. A court must allow it first.

The bracelet is meant to avert dangers and to be used only for people already identified as threats. The platform describes it as a supplementary security policy tool. Compared with round-the-clock shadowing by police officers, it intrudes less on personal rights, the party argues.

The FDP rejects permanently personalized tickets, automated facial recognition and mandatory travel routes for sports fans. It prefers dialogue and fan projects instead, while wanting violent offenders to face sanctions.

The FDP does not want to watch all sports fans. It is against cameras that recognize faces. It is also against tickets with names as a lasting rule. But people who use violence should be punished.

Fan projects are to receive support. Offenses by violent individuals are to be punished to make clear that violence, racism and hate have no place in sports. The FDP sees controlled, pre-approved use of pyrotechnics as the right way to push fireworks and non-extinguishable pyrotechnics out of stadiums.

The FDP wants to set up more Häuser des Jugendrechts (youth justice centers), arguing that the existing ones have proven effective. Juvenile criminal cases are to be processed and heard more quickly. In youth detention facilities, education is to be the main focus.

The FDP wants more youth justice centers. Police, prosecutors and helpers work together there. Cases against young people should move faster. Young people in detention should be able to learn well.

In these centers, police, prosecutors and youth court assistance work in one place together with independent providers. New centers are to open where they make sense locally and are wanted. The aim is to stop criminal careers early. Educational work in youth detention is to be expanded further, with a focus on schooling, so that young offenders also keep their chances for the future.

The FDP wants to found a Hessian victim protection foundation and give more support to victim aid associations. Victims are also to be told when an offender is granted day release or is released from prison.

The FDP wants to help crime victims more. Hesse should get a new foundation for this. Victims should learn when the offender gets out. Then they do not meet the offender unprepared.

The foundation is to fund support for victims and their families, give victims material help and back programs for looking after victims and witnesses. It would supplement victim-offender mediation. The FDP also calls for further mediation-style procedures, such as victim empathy training and individual dispute resolution aimed at compensation and apologies.

The FDP wants to expand prevention programs against child abuse and make greater use of the quick-freeze procedure. Under it, connection data is preserved when there is a specific suspicion, so investigators can identify offenders online more easily.

The FDP wants to protect children better from abuse. There should be more prevention programs. Police should be able to secure data faster when they suspect a crime. Children should be able to get advice from the police easily.

Released prisoners who were convicted of child abuse or of possessing child pornography are to get sufficient psychological care. The FDP voices concern about the rising number of minors under investigation for child pornography. An online police service is to inform and confidentially advise children, parents and teachers. All students from fourth grade on are to be told how to reach this service.

The FDP wants new approaches for reintegrating prisoners and more use of open prisons in order to reduce reoffending. Public safety is to be maintained throughout. Prison staff are also to get better training and pay.

The FDP wants prisoners to find their way back into life after prison. More prisoners should be in open prisons. That means they may leave during the day. They should also have more contact with family. This should lead to fewer new crimes.

Preparation for release and support afterward are to improve. Prisoners are to be offered work and training with a strong link to the common good, because the FDP sees making amends as part of rehabilitation. Longer visiting hours and suitable rooms are to support family contact. E-learning and video visits introduced during the pandemic are to stay and grow, but only for socially desirable purposes. For prison officers, the platform plans training, recruitment campaigns, attractive working-time models and higher Sunday and holiday bonuses.