Violence against law enforcement officers, paramedics and fire fighters
Criminology
Final Report Abstract
Violent attacks against police officers and rescue workers are gaining attention in society, as they are specifically directed against people who perform a special task. The phenomenon is increasingly the subject of a variety of discourses, not only within the institutions concerned, but also at the level of society as a whole and in the media in particular. In 2012, crimes involving violence against law enforcement officers were included in the Federal Criminal Police Office's federal statistics for the first time and have shown a steady increase since 2013. The phenomenon of violence against rescue workers, on the other hand, is perceived by society as a novelty and as particularly precarious, as this group of people, unlike police officers, is not legitimized to use violence and is therefore less likely to confront their civilian counterparts in a conflict-prone manner. Violence against this protected group of people was included in the crime code of the police crime statistics with the 52nd Criminal Law Amendment Act. The legislator was prompted to revise the resistance paragraphs of Sections 113, 114 and 115 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) by the Blockupy protests and violent attacks on emergency forces resulting from the opening of the new headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main in 2015 (Fifty-second Act Amending the Criminal Code - Strengthening the Protection of Law Enforcement Officers and Rescue Forces of May 23, 2017: Federal Law Gazette I No. 30, p. 1226 et seq.). The amendment led to the removal of the offense of assault from Section 113 StGB (old version) and was transferred to an independent offense in Section 114 StGB with a stricter penalty range et al., in which it is now sufficient for the unlawful act to occur as part of an official act, as from now on there is no need to carry out an enforcement act. In addition, the minimum penalty for assault has been increased to three months' imprisonment. In order to examine the question of the extent to which the change in the law can specifically contribute to the protection of emergency forces, it is important to take a holistic view of the history of the law. This seems particularly relevant in view of the fact that the phenomenon has a specific interactive character. The first tightening of the law and extension of the provisions relating to the offenses of resisting §§ 113 ff. StGB was introduced by the 44th Act Amending the Criminal Code, which raised the upper penalty limit in Section 113 StGB by one year to three years' imprisonment and included the possession of dangerous instruments in the list of standard examples. The amendment to the law also led to an expansion of the group of protected persons. Increasing demands are being made on the legislators. There is also growing interest in academic research contributions not only on resistance offenses per se, but also on the interactive processes that accompany acts of resistance.
Publications
-
Forschungsprojekt „Gewalt gegen Vollstreckungsbeamte und Rettungskräfte – GeVoRe“. KrimOJ 2021, No. 1
Maren Wegner, Marie Heil & Anja Schiemann
