SPD on public safety

The SPD wants online casino games in Saarland to be offered only by state-owned companies. Part of the gambling revenue is to go to prevention, counseling and research, and the party wants to crack down on illegal gambling.

The SPD wants only the state to run online casinos. Private companies should not get a license for this. Part of the gambling money should help fight gambling addiction. The SPD wants to fight illegal gambling.

In the SPD's view, the 2021 Interstate Treaty on Gambling made privatizing gambling much easier. Since Saarland could not regulate online gambling on its own, the party is counting on an effective joint regulatory authority of the German states. The state's implementing law is to be used to the full for prevention and player protection. Part of the revenue is to fund the protection of young people and players. The program rejects a situation in which companies keep the profits while the public bears the costs of addiction.

The SPD wants people to feel safer in their neighborhoods and in public spaces. To achieve this, it relies mainly on visible local policing and on well-functioning municipal public order services.

The SPD wants people to feel safe where they live. More police should be visible in towns. Towns should have a good public order service. It should take care of order and cleanliness.

The program counts safety and cleanliness among the basic needs by which people judge their quality of life. The sense of safety is to be improved primarily through police presence on the ground. The SPD lists vandalism, aggressive begging, noise disturbances, inconsiderate parking and graffiti as nuisances. A well-functioning municipal public order service is meant to address these.

The SPD wants to act against extremism and currently sees right-wing extremism as the greatest threat to democracy. It plans a task force at the domestic intelligence service for online hate, an action plan against racism and antisemitism, and more deradicalization work.

The SPD wants to fight hate and extremism. A new team is to be set up at the domestic intelligence service. It should track down hate speech online. There should be a plan against racism and hatred of Jews. Memorial sites should keep getting money.

The task force is to identify people who spread hate and potential offenders on social networks and messenger services and uncover networks and paths of radicalization. The SPD welcomes federal government plans to prosecute online threats and insults more firmly. In response to attempts to exploit the pandemic, the program names information, education, prevention and prosecution. Deradicalization is to be strengthened in prisons and in outreach social work. Remembrance work, places of Jewish life and the antisemitism commissioner are to keep receiving support.

The SPD wants to give police and prosecutors better technology, organization and staffing to pursue money laundering, cybercrime and hate offenses online. Proceeds of crime are to be confiscated consistently. A digital reporting office is to be set up for people targeted by online hate.

The SPD wants to prosecute crime on the internet more firmly. Police and prosecutors would get more staff and technology. The state would take away money that comes from crime. People who face hate online could report it online.

The platform names asset confiscation and the fight against money laundering as building blocks of prevention, for example in gang crime, drug dealing and corruption. In the SPD's view, the threshold for insults, threats and incitement is especially low on the internet; strict prosecution is meant to show that the web is not a lawless space. It also mentions fake shops, fraudulent trading platforms and child abuse material. Specialized units are to be expanded further and police officers trained accordingly.

The SPD wants to raise police recruitment so that at least 2,900 officers are on duty again within ten years. Every municipality is to keep a police station. Pay, pensions and allowances are to rise to make the job more attractive.

The SPD wants to hire more police officers. In ten years there should again be at least 2,900. Every town should keep a police station. Police officers should earn more. Training should also get better.

According to the platform, higher recruitment has not yet made up for earlier job cuts. Promotion prospects are to improve mainly in the lower pay grades; the SPD rejects bringing back the intermediate service tier. People with an intermediate school certificate are to be able to earn a university entrance qualification in a special course and thus join the police. Training is to be reformed, include education on democracy and bring in other professions. A regular, academically produced security report is to analyze the local situation; racist and far-right incidents in the authorities are to be investigated without placing officers under blanket suspicion.

The SPD considers video surveillance appropriate at crime hot spots and in cases of specific threats but rejects blanket surveillance. It relies instead on a visible presence of the security authorities. The police law and the law on police data processing are to be reorganized.

The SPD wants cameras only in dangerous places. It is against cameras everywhere. Police should be present on the ground instead. The laws for the police should become clearer. One law would cover police powers, another data protection.

Surveillance of public streets and squares is to remain possible at crime hot spots, after detailed threat assessments or in cases of terrorist threats. The security authorities are to work closely with municipalities. In the SPD's view, the current rules in the SPolG and SPolDVG are transparent neither for officers nor for the people affected. In future, powers of intervention are to be set out clearly in the police law and data protection matters in the data protection law.

The SPD wants to fight cross-border crime through closer cooperation with French and Luxembourg police rather than additional border checks. The Federal Police in Saarland is to gain staff. A new Federal Police authority in the state is to advance networking with neighboring countries.

The SPD wants to fight crime across borders. The police should work more closely with France and Luxembourg. The SPD does not want more checks at the border. The Federal Police in Saarland would get more staff.

Initiatives for joint police work are to be developed in the Greater Region. Property crime remains a focus; the SPD wants to act against burglary gangs together with its partners. Strengthening the Federal Police is also meant to allow bilingual training. The platform sees cross-border security as a contribution to peaceful coexistence in Europe.

The SPD wants to strengthen the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence agency) in staff and structure because it sees a growing threat from enemies of democracy. The tools of police and intelligence are to remain proportionate. At the same time, municipal crime prevention networks are to be set up statewide.

The SPD wants to strengthen the Verfassungsschutz. This agency watches enemies of democracy. It would get more staff. Citizens' rights should stay protected. Towns would get networks that help prevent crime.

According to the platform, enemies of democracy use freedom of assembly for slogans and disinformation, and radicalization increasingly happens via social networks and apps such as Telegram. Federal and state intelligence agencies are to cooperate more closely within the constitutional separation between police and intelligence. Prevention bodies are to be better connected, and local security partnerships and prevention councils founded. The SPD also wants to counter the emergence of what it calls crime-fostering parallel societies. It welcomes the criminal offense with a higher minimum sentence for violence against police and justice staff.

The SPD wants volunteers in aid organizations such as the Red Cross (DRK), ASB and DLRG to get the same time off for training and deployments as fire brigade and THW members. The law on fire protection, technical assistance and disaster control is to be reformed soon. Emergency responders are to be better protected from attacks.

The SPD wants better conditions for volunteers in aid services. They should get time off for missions just like firefighters. The disaster protection law would be rewritten. The SPD condemns attacks on emergency workers. More women should take part.

The reform of the fire and disaster protection law is to be developed in dialogue with aid organizations, volunteer fire brigades and the lower disaster control authorities, taking into account changed demands and support from full-time staff. Self-protection concepts in training are to be expanded. In the SPD's view, anyone who attacks responders must be punished consistently. To raise the share of women, volunteering is to become easier to combine with family life.