Grüne on public safety

The Greens want to expand the protection of children and teenagers from sexualized and other violence. The plan includes uniform standards, prosecution online and offline, and more prevention.

Children and teenagers need protection from violence. The Greens want the same rules everywhere. The police should pursue offenders on the internet and elsewhere. Images of abuse should be deleted. Schools and families should work on prevention.

The platform names uniform child protection standards and legal minimum requirements for expert witnesses. The office of the Independent Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues is to get a legal basis. Reporting offices are to improve and abuse material is to be deleted in a targeted way. Prevention is to take place in schools, youth services and families and also address potential offenders before violence happens. Young people leaving youth care are to get more help in the transition to adult life.

The Greens want to examine which minor offenses no longer need to be treated as crimes, in order to ease the burden on the courts. According to the platform, nobody should end up in jail because they cannot pay a small fine.

Some small offenses are crimes today. The Greens want to check whether that is needed. Courts should have less work this way. People who cannot pay a small fine should not go to prison.

Before jail time in place of an unpaid fine begins, the reasons for non-payment and other options are to be looked at more closely. Everyone taken into custody is to keep getting a lawyer's support. The platform also wants to examine whether state-certified social workers should get a broader right to refuse to testify in court. Children are to be given better consideration in court as victims or witnesses.

The Greens reject surveillance without specific cause, including blanket data retention, chat control, and biometric identification in public spaces. Instead they rely on targeted law enforcement using the quick-freeze procedure and AI-supported data analysis by the police.

The Greens do not want everyone to be watched without a reason. The state should not store everyone's connection data. It should not scan private chats either. But police should be able to secure data when there is a suspicion. Police should analyze their data better with computer programs.

With quick freeze, data is secured only once there is a specific suspicion; the platform calls it protective of civil rights. Police are to be able to link lawfully collected data automatically and faster, subject to data protection and purpose limitation. This includes transparent procedures and regular data protection audits, and control over the data is to stay with the authority. The overall surveillance audit is to be taken into account for existing and new powers and assessed by experts. Data protection is to be effective and practical, with less red tape.

The Greens want to move sexual offense law to a consent-based model, under which sexual acts without agreement are punishable. They also want new offenses for spreading nude images without consent and tougher sentences when knockout drops are used.

The Greens want to change the criminal law on sexual violence. Sex should only be allowed with consent. This is called the consent model. People who spread nude pictures against someone's will should be punished. This also applies to fake pictures made by a computer. People who use knockout drops should be punished harder.

The platform justifies the reform by saying offenses can then be prosecuted better. Using knockout drops and similar substances in sexual assaults is to count as an aggravating factor in the criminal code. When the EU directive on violence against women is implemented, spreading real or AI-generated nude images without consent is to become a crime as a rule. Legally sound rules are to be found to punish possessing and sharing footage that shows the rape of adults.

The Greens want to give the Federal Police and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) more staff, technology and constitutionally sound powers. Federal police laws are to be modernized and investigations in the digital sphere strengthened. The platform also relies on prevention as the most effective way to fight crime.

The federal police should get more staff and better technology. They should also be able to investigate better online. The laws for the police should be updated. The Greens also want to prevent crime before it happens.

Investments in modern buildings and equipment, including digital tools, are planned. Legal bases are to be targeted and tied to specific grounds and remain compatible with civil rights. The periodic security report is to be anchored in law to draw more on research. Police databases are to be improved and police statistics reformed so that hate crime is recorded more accurately.

The Greens want to further restrict access to firearms and other dangerous weapons. The platform points to the growing number of firearms and to violent crimes, especially in the home.

The Greens want stricter rules for weapons. It should be harder to get a gun. People should need a permit just to buy a blank-firing gun. Public offices should work together better.

Blank-firing guns could only be bought by people holding the minor firearms license (kleiner Waffenschein). Security and supervisory authorities are to cooperate more closely to enforce weapons law. The party wants to act against illegal arms trafficking. People known to the authorities as enemies of the constitution should not own weapons.

The Greens want to make police conduct more transparent. Federal Police officers would wear anonymized identification, and a ticket system would record the reasons for stops. The platform bases this on the police's special responsibility as holder of the state's monopoly on force.

Federal police officers should wear a number on their uniform. When stopped, people should get a slip stating the reason. This should make clearer what the police do. The office for complaints about the police should get stronger.

The Federal Police Commissioner is to be strengthened as a point of contact for officers and citizens. Powers to carry out stops are to be framed so they can be applied with legal certainty. Training is to raise awareness of diversity and foster a culture of learning from mistakes. The police are to open up more to research, and handling of people in acute mental crisis is to get more attention.

The Greens make fighting organized crime a priority. They want to set up a joint federal-state center, strengthen the relevant units of the BKA, Federal Police and customs, and allow tougher penalties. European agencies are also to receive more powers.

Criminal gangs cause great harm. The Greens want to act more strongly against them. The federal government and the states should work together in a new center. Punishments should be tougher. Police in Europe should also do more together.

The center is to have a basis in law, and agencies should be able to run more investigations into entire networks. The offense of forming a criminal organization is to be developed further. Europol is to become a European criminal police office with its own operational capabilities, and the European Public Prosecutor's Office is to cover cross-border organized crime as well. Added to this are more research, joint police centers in border regions and an independent civil society monitoring body.

The Greens want to expand the Federal Office for Combating Financial Crime into a financial police force. Assets obtained through crime should be easier to confiscate. The platform cites around 100 billion euros said to be laundered in Germany each year.

Criminals move a lot of money from crimes into the normal economy in Germany. This is called money laundering. The Greens want a special financial police for this. The state should be able to take away crime money more easily.

The new financial police would report each year on its investigative results. Asset recovery, meaning the seizure of proceeds from crime, is to be used more widely. The party argues that criminals are hit most effectively through their money.

The Greens want people who reject the constitution to have no weapons and hold no public office. Extremist networks are to be identified early and monitored, and associations banned. The platform focuses in particular on the far-right scene.

Some people reject the constitution. The Greens want to take their weapons away. They also should not work for the state. This applies to the police and the army, for example.

Security agencies are to monitor extremist networks closely and issue bans on associations. Legally sound vetting procedures are planned for public administration, security agencies and the Bundeswehr. Bias as a motive for crimes should be taken into account more consistently; the Greens want to check whether laws need to change for that.

The Greens want to invest in domestic security and better equip the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the domestic intelligence service. The aim is to uncover attack plans early. At the same time, victims of terror attacks and their families are to get more state support.

The Greens want to prevent terror better. The police and the domestic intelligence service should get more staff and technology. Dangerous people should be watched closely. Victims of attacks should get more help.

Agencies should be able to uncover and cut off the financing of extremist groups. Especially dangerous individuals are to be monitored without gaps across state lines and prosecuted where possible; there should be a uniform Europe-wide definition of who counts as a potential attacker. Federal and state agencies are to cooperate closely in the joint counterterrorism centers, with clear responsibilities and a legal basis. The Greens want to review whether the agencies' powers are sufficient and to implement the findings of the overall surveillance audit. Support for terror victims is to be financially secured, and the investigation of past attacks continued.

The Greens want to keep investing in civil protection and give the federal government a bigger role. Volunteers in fire departments, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) and aid organizations are to get better support. The platform points to more extreme weather caused by the climate crisis.

Storms and floods are becoming more common. The Greens want to protect people better. The federal government should do more. Volunteer helpers should get more support.

For volunteers, the platform mentions rules on time off from work and equal treatment during deployments and training. Investment is planned in buildings, equipment, vehicles, training, a reserve of supplies and capabilities against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear hazards. Warning infrastructure is to grow, and digital systems and a cyber aid service are to be set up. Cross-state exercises would be expanded, with aid organizations more involved. People with disabilities are to be included, and vulnerable groups given more attention in planning. The Greens want to examine upgrading existing shelters.

The Greens want to better equip Germany's intelligence services and give them a reliable legal basis. At EU level, a European intelligence agency is to be created. The services are to act within the rule of law and be effectively overseen by parliament.

Intelligence services collect information about dangers. The Greens want to equip them better. Europe should get a shared intelligence agency. Parliament should oversee the services well.

The domestic intelligence service would be strengthened in counterespionage and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in foreign intelligence. The domestic service should also draw more on academic, civil society and public sources, and independent research on anti-constitutional movements would be funded. The Military Counterintelligence Service should be able to protect Bundeswehr members worldwide. The platform justifies this with hybrid attacks, sabotage and influence campaigns, for example by Russia.

The Greens want stronger protection for critical infrastructure such as power grids, mobile networks and servers, and want control over it to stay in the country. An investment screening law is meant to close gaps when foreign investors buy such assets. Domestic and external security are to be treated more as one.

Power grids and phone networks are very important. The Greens want to protect them better. Foreign companies should not be able to simply buy them. A new law should make sure of that.

The platform points to damaged data cables, drone flights over Bundeswehr sites and incendiary devices in air freight. Building on the KRITIS umbrella law, infrastructure and the economy are to become more resilient, and key technologies are to be protected. Operators would get more advice on protective measures. Internationally, the Greens want to advance new instruments of international law to protect global infrastructure.