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This week the annual report "Relationship Violence" of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) has been published. Falsely, it was once again reported predominantly under the heading of "domestic violence"; on the one hand, this is far too narrow (only about 50 percent of the victims identified by the police lived in a domestic community with the suspects), on the other hand, too far (violence against children in households is not covered at all). What is meant is: violence in or in the context of "relationships", meaning sexual partner relationships. Violence also exists in many other "relationships" between people; but they are not recorded.
The tenor of the press reports is consistently very worried: "alarming numbers" reports the "SZ", "frightening numbers" of the DLF; others try to squeeze even more drama out of the facts. The "time" has discovered that there is (again) a "blind spot in the #MeToo debate". I am not sure that this howl of alarm is factually justified, so that the results of the investigation are correctly classified. Here are a few comments:
violence
One would spontaneously not come up with the idea that hide under the keyword "domestic violence" or "relationship violence" phenomena such as "forced prostitution" and "pimping". But they are included in the new statistics. Also newly added is "violation of the maintenance obligation" (§170 StGB, 5550 cases). This offense, which consists in the non-committal failure to pay money, runs in press releases under the beautiful title "economic violence" and is thus capable of leading the medial "violence" discussion as a whole to absurdity. For if the non-payment of maintenance is to be "violence", then it is also every theft or fraud, and also the tax evasion or the non-payment of rent, wages or loan debts.
Of course, it is a mess and also punishable to violate maintenance obligations, and the offense is, for various reasons, often insufficiently prosecuted (incontestability or frequent relocations of the perpetrators, disastrous living conditions, targeted concealment, high investigation effort with little return). But it is obviously not a "crime of violence", and there is little point in defining it as such in a roundabout way. For the question of how many "fires" broke out in 2017 and how many new fire-fighters we need, the question should play a role, what one has to consider as "fire": And the message "more and more fire break out" is not makes sense, if it is based on the fact that since last year also the unauthorized grilling is counted.
Overall, the report of the BKA lists 138,000 "victims", more than in the previous year. The increase, however, comes only from the fact that 6900 cases of crimes were counted, which in the previous year not yet the canon of selected acts counted (pimping, breach of maintenance obligations, coercion by threat of "sensitive evil" - ie not by force, etc. ). If one subtracts these newly recorded facts, the number of reported acts has not increased, but dropped by almost 2000.
As always, police crime statistics should state that they are suspects , not proven acts. How many cases lead to convictions is quite difficult to ascertain and does not follow from the police statistics, not even the reason for which there was no conviction. That does not make the statistics worthless, but relativizes their informative value. The notorious - and this time again striking - reporting, which equates the number of suspected police cases without any explanation with the number of "real" acts, conceals and distorts that.
This also applies to the so-called dark figure. Different media report different rates, others just say "extremely high" or "significant". Anyone who has determined this unrecorded number by which method is not experienced consistently. It can only be approximated and estimated with a lot of qualitative and quantitative scope. In surveys, for example, one can collect data on allegations of fact. But they do not know if they are correct or can only fathom it with great effort and in very small numbers. Likewise, one does not know whether respondents were based on accurate facts and assessments. For example, if you look at the statements in "social networks" and forums, you may have serious doubts that the majority of citizens know what "coercion" is, and so they are using their statements in "dark-figure" surveys ("Were you ever a victim of coercion? ") rather skeptical.
The "dark figure" is determined not (only) by the number of offenses actually committed, but above all by the proportion of the "bright field", ie the ratio of displayed to undisclosed acts. This differs greatly depending on the type of offense, which in turn has to do with a variety of factors: social visibility, private pursuit interest, social ostracism, readiness to report. There are plausible assumptions, for example, that in the area of sexual offenses and relational violence offenses, the willingness to display has risen sharply in the last 20 years. If, nevertheless, the case numbers of the reported cases fall in the statistics, this indicates a significant decrease in such acts. Of course, one does not know that exactly; but the usual reports of "strong increase of ..." are almost certainly wrong.
killings
The Federal Minister Franziska Giffey's statement on the number of reported homicides was very striking: "In 2017, a total of 147 women died as a result of so-called" partnership violence. "For a modern country like Germany, that would be unimaginable." It was "unbearable that in Germany every Monday, Wednesday, Friday a woman is killed by her current or former partner."
That's right and wrong at the same time and therefore not really useful. As an absolute event, it would also be "unbearable" if only 14 people were killed each year, or five, or two. So the question is what "intolerability" really means. For it has always been "endured": not by the victims, but by the legal community and the "society". The "conversion" follows the usual pattern: "Every ten minutes a burglary" etc. It would also be correct: "Every 56 seconds, a person in Germany is intentionally injured on the body." Whether that is a lot or a little, dangerous or "alarming", one can not tell from such statements.
One can not do much with such numbers; but they develop and suggest their own reality of threat assessment. Relativizing clues such as those mentioned above are usually countered with the argument that they "trivialized" the truth and did not show enough empathy with the actual victims. This argument misses the heart of the matter.
The number of homicides in Germany has fallen steadily for more than ten years (2007: 1050, 2010: 969, 2014: 830). In the police crime statistics for 2017, the following numbers of suspected cases appear: Manslaughter 1570; Murder 800; Personal injury with fatalities 80; negligent homicide 730 (compared bodily injuries: 560,000). Intentional killing offenses are in a very high proportion of "relationship acts" in the broader sense, and thus very often take place in the social proximity and not under completely strangers. Therefore, the number of killed "buddies", neighbors, work colleagues, rivals, etc., should be significantly higher than the number of women's sexual relations partners killed. The number of 147 is therefore absolutely bad, but in the relation not "alarming", new or extraordinary. It also does not prove that killing violence is a major issue for female victims in relationships.
Only marginally: in the Uno statistics on the "killing rate" (= persons murdered by intentional acts per 100,000 inhabitants), Germany ranks 163th out of 211 (rate 1.2), on a par with Great Britain - other examples: Japan 0.3; Austria 0.9; Denmark 1.0; France 1.4; Brazil 3.0; USA 5.4; El Salvador 82. Comparison of cities: Berlin 1.0; Vienna 1.4; Cape Town 60. The statement by the Minister that for a modern state the calculated number of suspects is "an unimaginable magnitude" is therefore not correct. It may sound "downplaying" to some - wrongly - but the number is by no means "unimaginable", but actually quite "good".
Silence
That did not arrive in the press coverage. She "alarmed" once again that again a state of crime and security threats had become "worse". The "Süddeutsche" devotes more than half of her page-one report to the whole of Saskia Etzold, who is certainly a lawyer and expert for all sorts of things, but certainly not for criminology, but has previously stated that it is "in the nature of offenses is that they are difficult to combat ". Maybe she means something right.
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The same press, who otherwise finds himself echoing for days at the political "artificial" dramatization of problems such as environmental hazards (through "politically controlled" limits) or poverty (allegedly "exaggerated" definitions), mentions the statistical artifacts in the violence debate at most in a hidden place but remains brave at the "alarm" in the headline. "Politics and government must finally take more responsibility," commented the "SZ" - whatever that means. Background: Presentation of a program to promote more women's shelters.
There is nothing wrong with this goal. But it also does not have to be announced with a clamor, as if the next state crisis had come down. And it does not have to be advertised in 2018 with the slogan "finally breaking the silence". Because there is - according to my perception - no social "silence" in a remarkable extent about gender-specific relationship. Rather, in media, parties, corporations, public offices, medical institutions, there is a high level of awareness and "sensitivity" to it, as with (most) law enforcement agencies.
dark fields
A few other "dark fields" could be addressed. For example, the vast majority of homicide victims are not women but men. The vast majority of suspects are also men. This is especially true in the area of intentional assault charges. Being beaten, kicked, injured as a man by a physically superior man is no more enjoyable or "deserving" than if the victim is a woman. Although the problem is empirically much larger, there are no "silence breaking" calls, no "helper programs" for notorious victims. And the "anti-aggression courses" of the juvenile court and probation service and the correctional facilities are laughed at as "good people" junk and "cuddle justice", which senselessly squander money on criminals instead of imprisoning them so long and hard until they become good and peaceful people ,
The greatest and most boisterous of all silence, however, seems to me, unchanged, to be in the area of violence against children. The horror of sexual abuse and the unimaginable unimaginable figures of this offense jumps daily from all media. Of the dark figure of "pushing aside, slapping, hitting objects, locking up, necessitating, threatening, screaming, humiliating ..." I hear only a little, and only when I search specifically for it. There is no "silence-breaking" program for the neighborhood and social near field. But every few months times a criminal complaint against a youth welfare office, which "did not do its duty", because once again a "small X" or "the small Y" starved or was beaten to death. The perpetrators are then regularly "monster" or "horror mothers", so have nothing to do with us, the good guys.
In fact, the "dark figure" of personal injury and "violence" (in the sense quoted above) against children by "normal" adults in the millions go. Result: In the PKS 2017 just 4600 ads appear because of "mistreatment of wards" (§ 225 StGB). Simple and dangerous injuries to children are not recorded as such. Suspects in § 225 StGB: 2500 men, 2100 women. Women, who are often the (physically) inferior to men, torture and maltreat their own physically inferior and delivered children almost as often as men. And this despite the fact that, after a lengthy debate 18 years ago, the use of violence and humiliation against children was expressly prohibited by law (§1631 Abs.2 BGB as amended by the law on the proscription of violence in education of 2.11.2000). The "time" of 5 June 2018 reports: "The violence against children has increased in 2017", referring to the aforementioned PKS figures.
Conclusion
Where the BMFSFJ is right is right, and if it launches a EUR 6 million program to finance women's shelters, that is welcome, because violence is a destructive phenomenon and violence against the weak is often particularly objectionable. Nothing speaks against doing everything possible to organize more prevention and more concrete help.
Doing this by firing whole batteries of alarm rockets does not seem to make sense to me because once again it just suggests that everything is getting worse and worse. In any case, it would be better to say that we have made a lot of progress and we want to continue along this path. Violence against women is decreasing overall; You do not have to spice it up artificially. For women in Germany is not "the home a dangerous place" in the sense, as the headlines suggest.
The population group for whom the home is by far the most frequently "dangerous place" (without a way out) are children under the age of ten.