After reports on police violation of justice became more frequent in the course of the 1990s and especially with documentation from Amnesty International, Action Courage and the Commission for Human Rights of the United Nations being carried into the public eye, the demand for a reform of the police force grew louder.
One of the central problems named for violation is that there is too much demand for police officers to get involved in conflicts in society and that they also have lots of concerns in their everyday working life which can lead to stress and frustrations. Another thing that is part of the problem is the compartmentalisation of police devices which results in the so-called ‘cop-culture’, and lastly there is a lack of legal convictions for violation which leads back to a lack of transparency and supervision in the police force. (more on this in the article: An Attempt to Explain)
Because of these problems Human Rights Organisations and leftist parties and organisations suggest, firstly, a practise-orientated education and on-the-job training for police officers, which should better prepare officers for conflicts that they come across in their everyday work. Secondly, they suggest increased transparency and supervision of police officers – for example for every officer to carry individual identification – and the bettering of the inner-structure of the suspervision mechanisms in the police force and a consequential legal conviction of the violation in order to prevent violation of justice.
In order to prevent violation of justice in the long term it is necessary to incorporate teaching against violation into the initial and ongoing training of the police officer. Because society is changing more and at a quicker rate, it is necessary that police officers also account for these changes and look out for them. However the reality of this societal compartmentalisation is contrary to the training and further education of police officers; Bringing in new knowledge and content to the current syllabis for police training should considerably hinder this. It is suggested that the lessons for police officers should be carried out by teaching staff who come from outside of the police force in order for new sociological knowledge to be allowed to flow.
Futhermore, it is important that the syllabis of the training does not concentrate solely on law and the wilful memorisation of paragraphs and facts of different cases, but that the main focus of training should be on social sciences, constitutional law, sociology and psychology so that officers are able to link their own work to the larger picture of society. The procurement and enhancement of social competence in training should be of the same value as the procurement of expert knowledge and law so that their understanding of why they are carrying out their work, that is, for helping people, keeping the law, balance and solving conflicts, is strengthened.
Continuous practise-orientated training of police officers is called for in order to prevent momentum in the everyday work of the police force. This should not be carried out in the internal division of the police force but should be in the form of seminars which are held in a public educational institution. In particular, the introduction of stress management training promoting the reflective association of police officers with stressful situations, psychological advice and supervision of police officer, should approach the subject of stress and frustration as a cause of violation.
As well as stress management training and supervision, further training on the theme of conflict resolution and dialogue is especially significant for the everyday work of the police force. The ability to communicate in solving problems would be strengthened when it is based on the complex practise of communication in theory and practise. As well as that, contact with those on the edges of society should be thematised in training and there should be a pattern for the police officers to following for when they come into contact with those on the edges of society, which should also be practised. Such training should focus on better inter-cultural competence, in view of the shocking extent of violation towards a person who has an (assumed) immigration background. In order to strengthen the inter-cultural competence of police officers, such as being tolerant towards other cultures and ways of life, training has to address existing prejudices and police officers have to get to know other cultures and ways of life and have personal encounters with them. In order to do this it would be especially helpful if there were a higher percentage of police officers with a foreign background in the police force.
As well as reforms in the police force, it is really important that the work that police officers do is supervised. This should correspond to the training and further education of police officers which should therefore fundamentally prevent police violation. Principles of democracy like transparency and supervision have to be employed in the police force.
Even left-winged people promote the idea of police officers carrying individual identification which corresponds to the democratic and right-winged principle. The necessity of such identification for example, a name badge or individual officer number, is especially clear when people consider that procedures against perpetrators in uniforms frequently fail because they are not identifiable and can therefore hide behind the collectivity of the police force as a whole. However because offences in police service have legal consequences the constant supervision of police officers who seem to be having difficulties is necessary. There is already an internal supervision mechanism for example, there is the possibility of a disciplinary complaints procedure however, these are only within the police force and between police officers themselves. This shows a discrepancy between the high number of violations and the few following disciplinary proceedures which hardly ever lead to an actual sanctioning. The disciplinary code of practise and law for officers does not reach far enough and they have no preventative impact – expecially the prevention of violation.
Police officers cannot investigate other police offciers because they are just as part of the system as the public prosecution service. In order for an actual wide-reaching supervision of police officers it is necessary to establish an independent police commission which is controlled by society which demands a far-reaching authority and like those already existing in a number of countries (for example the Menschenrechtsbeirat (Human Rights Council) in Austria or the Police Complaints Authority in Great Britain). The UN – Human Rights Commission has vocalised their recommendation for Germany to also introduce such an independent supervision commission.
The commission should be individually and financially independent and directly part of the parliament and not under the control of the ministers in the Home Office so that it does not again become a “system integrated” supervisor. Lastly there must also be an actual explanation for the overuse violence by police officers. The commission should also be able to restrict, as the case may be, unregistered access to files which are received by the police force. In principle, the police control commission has to be independent in their operative activities and should work in close proximity with the Human Rights Organisation. To be more precise, the so-called Police Commission was set up in Hamburg in 1998 but was disintegrated in 2001 by Roland Schill, the Home Secretary at that time.
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