Linke on public safety

The Left wants to make fire protection a mandatory task under state direction, paid for by the state. In rural areas, full-time local fire brigades would supplement volunteer fire departments. Volunteers would receive more recognition.

The Left wants fire departments to be equally well equipped everywhere. The state should pay for this. In rural areas there should also be fire brigades with paid staff. Volunteers should get educational leave and pension credits.

Together with ambulance services, full-time local brigades would respond first in places where help would otherwise arrive too late. For volunteers, the party demands educational leave for training and pension credits. A joint fire service levy for commercial areas is to be examined. Also planned are European disaster response units based in Saxony, barrier-free warning systems and the inclusion of people with disabilities in active service. Fire departments are to open up to women and queer people, and civil protection would become an educational topic starting in daycare.

The Left rejects the planned revision of Saxony's assembly law because it sees it as hollowing out freedom of assembly. It also demands that anti-fascist and civil society protest not be criminalized and that the police task force "Soko LinX" be dissolved.

The Left wants to strengthen the right to protest. It is against the planned new assembly law. Police should protect journalists at protests. The special unit "Soko LinX" should be closed.

In the platform's view, the bill subordinates assembly law to police law. As examples it cites systematic data checks on volunteer stewards and a much longer advance notice period for registering a demonstration. Media must be able to work at assemblies at all times, and police are to protect journalists from attacks. "Soko LinX" is a special unit of the Saxon police dealing with left-wing motivated crimes.

The Left wants to respond to offenses by children and young people mainly with social-pedagogical and psychological support rather than repression. To that end, more facilities like Leipzig's "Haus des Jugendrechts" (House of Juvenile Justice) are to be created and more social workers are to do prevention work.

Some children and young people commit crimes. The Left wants to help them mainly with social work and psychology. It does not see harsh punishment as the answer. There should be more social workers who prevent crime.

Police, prosecutors and courts are to create the organizational conditions. The party relies on close cooperation among different disciplines. Houses of Juvenile Justice are to be expanded across the state. School curricula are to firmly include violence prevention, an understanding of democracy, cultural education and empathy for victims.

The Left wants to revise Saxony's police law so that fundamental rights and the presumption of innocence come first. An independent ombuds and complaints office under the state parliament and separate investigators for cases of police misconduct are meant to strengthen trust in the police.

The Left wants to change the police law in Saxony. Basic rights should matter more. An independent office should look into complaints about the police. Police officers can complain there too. Separate investigators should look into claims against police officers.

The ombuds office is to work as an independent public-law body on a statutory basis. It is to handle complaints from citizens about police actions as well as complaints from police staff about superiors and unfair treatment. It should also be able to send observers to demonstrations who document violations of the law and make them public. Following Denmark's model, external investigative bodies are to take over criminal cases when police misconduct is suspected. The party sees security as coming mainly from tackling the social causes of crime.

The Left rejects police video surveillance in public spaces as well as automated facial recognition and tracking. It also opposes checks and random dragnet stops at the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic. In its view, these technologies interfere disproportionately with fundamental rights.

Police in Saxony often film protests and soccer fans. The Left does not want that. It also does not want software that recognizes faces. There should be no checks at the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic. Everyone should be able to move freely.

The program criticizes the monitoring of demonstrations and soccer fan scenes with cameras, helicopters and drones. Automated image and pattern analysis for monitoring public spaces is to be banned. For the police use of so-called super recognizers, the party demands transparency and clear rules. Saxony is also to stop taking part in international police missions that support authoritarian regimes or take place at the EU's external borders.

The Left wants a well-trained state police force that is reachable locally and has more investigative capacity rather than new powers or equipment. Training is to include mandatory courses against racism and discrimination, and the police are to become more diverse.

The Left wants police who are close to the people. Officers should get better training. They should take courses against racism. The police should not get more powers or more gear. Security should stay a job for the state.

Quality is to come before quantity in developing the police, with good working conditions and specialization. De-escalation is to come first in training, police academies are to be integrated into civilian higher education, and administrative training is to move from Rothenburg to Meissen. Targeted support is to bring underrepresented groups into the force. The party rejects further expansion of municipal enforcement services because it sees policing as a state task. It also rejects privatizing security tasks, as well as vigilante groups and people taking the law into their own hands.

The Left wants to ban racial profiling and require all police officers to wear an individual ID number on their uniform. Identity checks without cause, "dangerous places," prohibition zones and control areas are to be scrapped because the party believes they are misused for discriminatory checks.

The Left wants every police officer to wear a number on the uniform. Then people can find the officer after a crime. Police should not check people without a reason. Checks based on skin color should be banned. Anyone who is checked should get a receipt.

The ID requirement is meant to make it possible to prosecute crimes committed by officers on duty. The program says such cases rarely reach court and practically never end in a conviction. The power to declare places dangerous or set up weapons-ban zones is to be removed. A stop receipt is meant to raise the bar for unlawful checks and make legal action easier for those affected. Intercultural and social skills are to be part of the training and continuing education plan.

The Left wants to abolish Saxony's Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz (state office for the protection of the constitution). In the party's view, the intelligence service does not protect democracy but acts mainly politically. Until it is dissolved, parliament is to oversee it effectively.

The Verfassungsschutz is a state intelligence service. The Left wants to close it down in Saxony. The party says it does not protect democracy well. Until then, the state parliament should watch it closely.

The program points to the NSU terror cell, saying the agency was more of a hindrance than a help in fighting it. Police and courts are to solve far-right crimes and hate crimes quickly, and the party rejects moving the police closer to intelligence-style methods. The agency's public reports are to end. It is to play no further role in civic education.

The Left wants to strengthen victim protection and support and develop criminal law toward restorative justice. Courts are to work faster with more staff, prison is to be a last resort, and a rehabilitation law is to help convicted people return to society.

The Left wants to help crime victims better. Courts should get more staff and work faster. Prison should only be the last resort. Offenders should make up for the harm. A new law should help convicted people not to commit crimes again.

Victim counseling centers are to be expanded statewide, and victims are to get unbureaucratic help before, during and after proceedings. As ways to avoid prison, the program names mediation in criminal cases, community service, open forms of custody and victim-offender mediation, which is to apply to medium and serious crime as well. The rehabilitation law is to provide better-resourced transition management with transitional housing and placement in housing and work. Prisoners are to take part more often in victim empathy training and compensate their victims. Cooperation with nonprofit providers and municipalities is to improve.

The Left wants more therapy and addiction services in prisons and easier contact between inmates and their families. According to the platform, family and children provide stability and motivate people to change.

The Left wants more help for people in prison. There should be more therapy for addiction. Inmates should see their families more easily. The party says family gives people support.

Therapy and treatment services, especially addiction therapy units, are to be expanded together with independent nonprofit providers. This includes easily accessible addiction and drug counseling, substitution treatment and aftercare. Family houses run by independent providers are to be tested in pilot projects as a new form of custody. Video calls should not reduce regular visiting time.

The Left wants to push at the federal level for ending jail time in place of unpaid fines, except in rare cases. Riding without a ticket would become a mere administrative offense, and taking discarded food would no longer be prosecuted. The platform sees these penalties as discrimination against poor people.

Today, people who cannot pay a fine often go to jail. The Left wants to end this almost completely. Riding without a ticket should no longer be a crime. Taking food from store dumpsters should not be punished either.

According to the platform, substitute imprisonment under Section 43 of the Criminal Code mainly hits people with little money who cannot pay fines. The party considers the criminal penalty for fare evasion in Section 265a disproportionate because criminal law should be a last resort. In the long run, local public transit is to be free. Through the Bundesrat, Section 248a is to be changed so that taking discarded food from supermarket trash bins is no longer prosecuted.