Safety policies and policing in Germany during the last three decades. An historical overview.

Thomas Gilly

The development of safety policing and policies in Europe strongly increased during the last three decades. This phenomena is due one the one hand, to qualitative and quantitative changing of crime and criminality, and on the other hand to the transformation observed in the perception of crime and, as a result of this, the increasing feeling of insecurity amongst the citizens. The general nature of these transformations which are observed all over Europe had a stimulating effect on the harmonisation of the different safety - policy and policing cultures of the different member states of the European Community. But this processes has not engendered a real European safety policy and policing - either repressive or preventive.

Each member sate has its own culture, and the question how long a specific national culture resist against harmonisation and globalisation depends essentially on the nature of the culture.

Risk - and Insecurity -Management instead the fight against crime and criminality, the development of the traditional antagonistic model repression - prevention into a synergy which refers to the combination of reactive and proactive strategies, decentralised policing, development of urban safety policies and community - policing, increasing of the interaction and unification of criminal law and police law, crime prevention which is formally involved in the criminal justice, decrease of crime prevention that do not formally involve the criminal justice all these points are indicators of globalisation.

The concept of Safety policing and policies in the meaning of securité intérieure or Innere Sicherheit emerged in the 1980s as a result of terrorism. Nonetheless, the current and contemporary meaning refers genuinely to urban safety policies and new crime prevention.

In comparison with the development of safety policies and policing observed in France and the UK during the last decades, Germany is a specific or completely atypical case:. Prevention strategies has been developed in Germany less intensively and later than in other France or the UK; the importance of Central Government as a energiser still remains relatively limited in Germany and new prevention strategies refer lees to real community - policing, i. e. policing performed by the communities, but rather to traditional policing on the community level.

The paper I will present gives an analyse of the historical, institutional and structural reasons which explain the atypical nature of the German development.

It also givers an overview of the main phases of the development of safety policing in Germany during the last decades:

The historical development of safety policing in Germany shows three principle phases:

1. The development from a literal and strong meaning of Innere Sicherheit, that referred traditionally to the fight against crime and to an individual concept of public order into a more wider concept which refers to a collective concept of public order and to the defence of the Institutions of the Federal republic of Germany. This transformation emerged as a result of the era of the 1970s terrorism
2. The transformation of safety policing which referred genuinely to the repressive function of the criminal into safety policing based on crime prevention, and as a result of this the development of a strong co-operation between the traditional actors in safety policing ( police and justice) with secret services and agents and institutions that belong to the defence of the national territory. This phenomenon developed as a result of the fight against organised crime during the 1980’s
3. The development of Risk and insecurity management through by means of experimentation and implementation of strategies of new prevention and local / community prevention. This tendency emerged in the late 1990`s as a result of the growing feeling of insecurity.
4. Finally, but in link with the last mentioned phenomenon, the development of safety - policing into a policy aimed to the control of migratory flux, immigration sand integration of immigrants, which goes had in hand of the development of the repression and prevention of hate crimes, xenophobia and racism which emerged as a result of generalised anomie due to the reunification of Germany and the collapse of the URSS.

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