Patrol at the outdoor pool?: The police are not the fire brigade of society

There is currently almost no topic that does not call for more police.

Recently it was the outdoor pools in Berlin after a mass brawl broke out in the Neukölln district.

In Frankfurt it was Christopher Street Day that made the scene uneasy because there had been several attacks with a homophobic background.

But the demand for more police is so predictable that it no longer surprises anyone.

That's how inflationary the law enforcement agencies are now being called whenever social developments threaten to get out of hand.

It was Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) who spoke of posting the police in outdoor pools.

A liberating blow for the pools themselves, because their own security staff is also limited in number and powers.

However, the idea had apparently not been thought through to the end, because it was foreseeable that the key question would be asked: where should the resources come from?

The police forces of the countries are already pretty burned out in terms of personnel.

And if you start at the outdoor pool – where do you stop?

Should every folk festival be protected?

Would you have to visit every park where people meet to party in the evening?

Guard every public place with a mobile guard in case any crime breaks out?

Now the Jusos are already demanding more camera surveillance

Apparently, the expectations are now so great that social groups are also calling for (more) protection from the police, who have otherwise always carried the image of the police state as a bogeyman.

In Frankfurt, for example, even the Jusos are now demanding an expansion of camera surveillance in the city center - after the attacks on members of the "queer community".

The example shows how crooked the old clusters are now.

What is required is what suits

the respective

On the other hand, there is no dealing with the perpetrators, their motives for this form of hate crime and also with the question of successful or unsuccessful integration and lack of tolerance.

In Hesse, the police union has found clear words for the call for more civil servants in public space: the police are not the "fire brigade of society".

Many civil servants complain that their work is hardly appreciated.

But as soon as the pressure from politics or from social groups increases, the police should clean up the grievances, preferably immediately.

But this development is going in the wrong direction.

It is a mistake to believe that an ever-increasing police presence in the public sphere can solve problems long preceded by social developments.

For example, the failed integration policy.

When combating juvenile delinquency, it was initially difficult to adopt a perpetrator-oriented approach, which, in addition to many other factors, also included the origin with regard to the socialization that a perpetrator had gone through.

In the meantime, this has become indispensable in the analysis of crime phenomena in prevention.

The police are mostly silent about the motives

But in the general debate about group-specific violence in public space, it is still very clear that everyone talks about the symptoms because that is what causes unrest in society.

But nobody likes to deal with the causes: why conflicts are generally resolved with violence in the first place.

The police authorities themselves also have to rethink.

In their public communications, they often do themselves a disservice by refusing to provide information that provides insight into the motivation that drove a perpetrator to commit their crime.

The citizen only finds out in exceptional cases whether there are cultural reasons behind it;

for example, when the police themselves have become victims of attacks.

Or now also with so-called honor killings, the targeted killing of women for cultural reasons.

But why shouldn't it be possible to consider other phenomena more criminologically?

With regard to the situation in outdoor swimming pools, which police union members say is part of a “recurring part” of their work, it would be interesting to break down the question: who is fighting on the sunbathing lawn?

Is the perpetrator profile heterogeneous, are all population groups represented?

Or is it a unified picture?

Is it, as many suspect, ultimately an integration problem?

Then there would also be an approach for solutions.

But of course it's much easier to call for more police.