Grüne on public safety

The Greens want to continue adding police officers up to 7,000 positions and to strengthen police administration. The job is to become more attractive through promotions and more money for IT specialists.

The Greens want to hire more police officers. The goal is 7,000 positions. Police administration should also get more staff. Officers should be promoted faster.

Alongside officers on duty, police administration is to be strengthened considerably. Promotion backlogs are to be cleared and extra financial room created in IT, especially for specialists. Police stations are to get their own reliable budgets. Bicycle patrols are to be further supported as a community-oriented and preventive element.

The Greens reject mass surveillance through chat control or facial recognition. According to the platform, security needs and civil rights are to stay in balance.

The Greens do not want surveillance of everyone. The state should not scan private chats on a mass scale. Cameras should not recognize faces automatically. Safety and freedom should both count.

The platform rules out both instruments if the party is part of the government. It describes them as mass surveillance. In the Greens' view, security requires trust between the state and the public, which includes transparency and respectful treatment.

The Greens reject mass surveillance in stadiums, at assemblies, public events and markets. Analysis software such as Palantir should not be introduced in Saxony-Anhalt. New police capabilities should only be allowed with clear rules, oversight and time limits.

The Greens do not want large groups of people to be watched. This applies to stadiums, protests and markets. The police should not get the Palantir software. New police tools need clear rules and oversight.

The program wants to adapt the police to the current security situation, but only with legal rules, effective oversight, limits on duration and scope, and regular evidence-based reviews of whether the tools are needed. Data analysis is to be tightly controlled by law. Police tasks are to be defined more clearly, especially when dealing with people in a mental health crisis; Tasers should only be a last resort there. Crime statistics are to be supplemented by research so that policing follows scientific evidence.

The Greens want to turn the police college in Aschersleben into an independent university with its own research. Initial and ongoing training should focus on democratic values, human rights and de-escalation. The police should also actively recruit people from different groups in society.

The Greens want to change police training. The police college in Aschersleben should become independent and do research. Officers should learn more about human rights and calming down conflicts. The police should be as diverse as society.

The college is to publish research results and involve outside experts in teaching. Because many trainees drop out, the requirements for applicants are to be clarified and recruitment campaigns targeted more precisely. Training on anti-discrimination and intercultural skills is meant to counter racial profiling and extremism. Women, queer people, people with a migration background and multilingual applicants are to be approached and supported. Experienced officers should pass on their knowledge to younger ones in a systematic way.

The Greens want to create an independent body that investigates complaints and reports of misconduct in the police. It should be easy to reach, have far-reaching powers and report to the state parliament every year. According to the program, this should strengthen trust in the security authorities.

The Greens want a new office for complaints about the police. This office should be independent. Citizens and police officers can contact it. The office reports to the state parliament every year.

The commissioner is to protect whistleblowers and make an open culture of learning from mistakes possible. Complaint channels should be easy to use for citizens as well as for officers themselves. Complaints are to be documented and evaluated in order to improve structures. In addition, there is to be more supervision and room for reflection for officers, who should learn from mistakes rather than be assigned blame.

The Greens want to put rehabilitation and the prevention of new crimes more firmly at the center of the prison system. To this end, prison conditions are to be improved, staff increased, and psychosocial support and addiction treatment expanded. Therapy in prison is to be paid the same as work.

The Greens want to prepare prisoners better for life after prison. There should be more staff and more therapy in prisons. People who do therapy should be paid as much as for work. There should also be suitable prison places for women in the state.

The plan includes more specialist staff, better therapy and closer cooperation with support systems outside prison, including a managed transition to outpatient treatment after release. For women, a separate prison setting close to home is to be created in Saxony-Anhalt, with mother-and-child housing and suitable care and education. Freie Arbeit, meaning community service instead of prison, is to get more places and reliable funding for the organizations that run it. Municipalities, civil society and business are to help with work and training.

The Greens want to abolish the Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe, meaning imprisonment for people who do not pay a criminal fine. In the program's view, it mainly affects people in difficult circumstances and rarely helps rehabilitation. It is to be replaced by alternatives such as installment payments and community service.

Some people cannot pay a fine. Today they then have to go to prison. The Greens want to end this. Instead there should be installments, community service and social support.

The program calls this form of imprisonment a criminalization of poverty. It says it tears those affected away from their last social ties. As replacements it lists flexible installments, seizure of assets, community service and social support. Better prevention options are also to be created so that people do not reoffend.

The Greens want to give volunteer fire departments, rescue and disaster-response services more financial support. The state is to contribute more for vehicles and buildings and compensate volunteers better. Employers are to be fully reimbursed for lost wages during call-outs.

The Greens want more money for fire departments and rescue services. The state should pay more for vehicles and fire stations. Volunteers should get better compensation. Companies get money back when workers leave for an emergency.

State grants for emergency vehicles, fire stations and water supply points for firefighting are to rise according to need. Expense allowances for active responders and leaders are to improve markedly. Reimbursement to employers is to happen without much red tape. A statewide campaign is to win over businesses to release employees for daytime call-outs.