SPD on public safety

The SPD wants more staff for the Thuringian police to improve its presence across the state. A steady 300 trainees are to be hired each year. Officers are to be better protected and police work made more attractive.

The SPD wants more police officers in Thuringia. Every year, 300 new people should start training. Police should be present everywhere in the state. People who attack emergency workers should face tougher punishment. Police buildings should be renovated.

Additional positions are meant to create a staffing structure that holds up over the long term, and the new community contact officer posts are to be filled quickly. Body cameras are to be used statewide to protect officers and secure evidence. The SPD supports legislative initiatives for tougher criminal provisions on attacks against police and rescue workers. Within five years, a shortened path into the next-higher career track, modeled on the federal police, is to be written into state rules as a step toward a two-tier career system. An investment program is to clear the renovation backlog at police buildings, and the Meiningen training center is to be developed into a modern campus.

The SPD wants to make police work more attractive, including through free state-paid health care for all officers and a new system of allowances. It also wants more women in leadership roles and more recruits from diverse backgrounds.

The SPD wants more people to join the police. Officers should get free health care from the state. The extra pay for officers should get new rules. More women should become police leaders.

The plan includes free health care for all police officers, a police allowance that counts toward the pension, and a thoroughly revised allowance system. Adjusted shift times and special childcare options are meant to help officers combine work and family. A mentoring program is to support women specifically. The SPD also wants to reach people with different language skills so the police better reflect society. The police training institutions are to be merged, and training is to raise awareness of discrimination. Structures to prevent assaults and bullying are to be set up.

The SPD wants to equip the police better digitally and train them for online investigations. Investigators are to receive new technical and legal tools, and artificial intelligence is to be used under human oversight.

The SPD wants a more digital police force. There should be a degree program for IT investigators. The police should get new technology and new legal powers. They should also use artificial intelligence. But a person should check every decision a machine makes.

The plan includes a degree program for IT investigators and more training to build up in-house IT specialists. The online police station is to get more functions, and officers are to keep receiving up-to-date digital devices. For AI, the SPD wants to disclose which data the systems were trained on and have them checked regularly for discrimination. A human is to review every AI decision. A pilot project is to test crime fighting based on case data for home and shop burglaries.

The SPD wants to make protecting women from violence a priority of police work. At the federal level it wants to push for harsher penalties for femicides, meaning killings of women because of their gender.

The SPD wants to protect women better from violence. The police should make this a main task. Femicides should be punished more harshly. A femicide is the killing of a woman because she is a woman. Police officers should learn more about this.

The police are to improve their approaches to action and intervention in protecting women. Officers are to be made more aware of hate crime against women during and after training. Victims of sexual violence should feel taken seriously by the authorities. For harsher punishment, the SPD seeks a change to the federal Criminal Code.

The SPD wants to turn the police ombuds office into an oversight authority under the Ministry of Justice. The program argues that when officers are reported, the police currently in effect investigate themselves. A study is also to examine anti-democratic attitudes and racism in the security agencies.

The SPD wants a new oversight body for the police. It should belong to the Ministry of Justice. Today the police look into complaints against officers themselves. The SPD wants to change that. A study should examine racism in the security agencies.

Police stations are to receive funds for supervision and counseling so that mistakes and uncertainties on duty can be discussed in a protected setting. The study on anti-democratic attitudes and racism is to be developed together with the professional associations. A social skills center and more prevention offerings in training are meant to strengthen democratic attitudes. The SPD wants to prevent far-right structures from taking hold in state institutions.

The SPD wants to provide more state money for the equipment, vehicles and stations of fire departments and rescue services. Volunteers are to be honored with a campaign and a bonus of 500 euros after ten years of active service.

The SPD wants to give fire departments more money. The money is for gear, vehicles and fire stations. Volunteer helpers should get a bonus. After 10 years of service they get 500 euros. A campaign should win young people for volunteer work.

Investments are to pay special attention to separating contaminated from clean clothing in order to prevent cancer caused by fire residues. The state fire and disaster protection school is to be modernized and complemented by decentralized training. Vehicles are to be purchased in a more pooled way through joint associations or the state to cut costs. Psychosocial emergency care for responders is to be expanded, as are modern alert structures. Because of rising attacks, responders are to receive modern protective gear.

The SPD wants to protect critical infrastructure better and make civil protection more capable. Protective measures are to be implemented by public and private operators alike, and the federal government is to contribute appropriately.

The SPD wants to protect important facilities better. These include power and water, for example. Public and private bodies should carry out protective steps. The federal government should share part of the task.

The program calls critical infrastructure the backbone of the community, saying its protection has gained attention in recent years. The state is to make sure operators actually carry out the required measures. The SPD wants to keep pressing the federal government for an appropriate contribution. It also supports holding a nationwide alert day on a regular basis.

The SPD wants to close staffing gaps at prosecutors' offices and set up specialized units, for example for organized crime, internet crime and extremist offenses. Criminally obtained profits are to be confiscated more often.

The SPD wants to strengthen prosecutors' offices. There should be special units for serious crimes. These include organized crime and crimes on the internet. Extremist crimes are part of this too. The state should take away money from crimes more often.

The special units are to deal with organized crime, economic, environmental and internet crime, as well as terrorist, extremist, especially right-wing extremist, and racist offenses. Asset recovery is to get more staff, mainly judicial officers. The justice system and police are to cooperate more closely. Youth stations are to be expanded beyond the pilot projects in Gera and Jena/Saale-Holzland district.

The SPD wants crimes against people holding public office or elected mandates to continue to be prosecuted as a priority. It argues that these people have faced growing hostility and threats in recent years.

Politicians are threatened more often. The SPD does not want to accept this. Prosecutors should keep treating these crimes as a priority. There should also be advice for those affected.

The platform calls officeholders and elected representatives central actors of democracy. For crimes against them, prosecutors should always affirm that there is a public interest in prosecution. The SPD also points to counseling services such as the existing hate speech contact office. In addition, a measure is to be examined for Erfurt, Meiningen and Mühlhausen to improve the fight against child and youth crime across the state.

The SPD wants to set up a volunteer office for the concerns of crime victims and establish a state fund for victim aid. Victims of crime are to receive protection and support and find their way to existing counseling services more easily.

The SPD wants to help crime victims more. One person should show victims where to get advice. This person works as a volunteer. There should also be a fund for victims. Victims get quick help from it.

The state victims' commissioner would not provide counseling personally but would direct those affected to suitable services. A victim aid report is to be published every two years, with special reports on particular occasions. Information material and guides are to be kept up to date in accessible and easy-to-understand form. The victim aid fund would step in where other help is not available, cushion hardship cases, and be fed by criminal fines and administrative fines on top of a base amount from the state budget. Existing services such as witness support, psychosocial court assistance and non-governmental victim aid are to remain funded.

The SPD wants a prison system that is secure, modern and geared toward reintegration. To that end, prison work is to become a more attractive career, and support for inmates during their transition to freedom is to be regulated in a dedicated law.

The SPD wants to modernize prisons in Thuringia. After prison, inmates should be able to live without crime. A new law should help with this. It covers support when inmates are released. Working in a prison should become better for staff.

For staff, the platform lists better working and training conditions, promotion prospects, pay, and a reinstated special allowance for trainees. Inmates are to have more ways to work off a jail term imposed for unpaid fines; digital media and education offerings are to be examined, electronic visits expanded, and conditions for older inmates improved. Deradicalization and exit programs are to be continued or set up, and the victim's perspective is to carry more weight in resocialization. Medical and especially psychiatric care is to improve. The SPD stands by the joint Zwickau-Marienthal prison project with Saxony and wants to examine a state aftercare facility for complex cases after release.

The SPD wants to better equip the justice system's social services and the associations that provide independent offender support. According to the platform, this prevents new crimes and repeat imprisonment and thereby serves public safety.

Some people have committed a crime and live outside prison. Specialists and associations support them. The SPD wants more staff and better equipment for this work. The goal is fewer new crimes.

The social services, which handle probation, court assistance and post-release supervision, are to get enough staff so that more time is left for support and oversight. Their technical equipment is to improve; mobile working is seen as necessary, especially in rural areas, to accompany offenders at home. The independent offender-support associations, which arrange community service, offer counseling and run social training courses, are to be consolidated and expanded. A new funding structure is to make it possible to finance pilot projects in full.