Abolish Police- Even in Germany

The police abolition movement should be worldwide.

This was written last year but never published. This piece is a work in progress and the thoughts here are never meant to be a last word. I thought I’d publish to build on this with you all.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, while many activists and academics have called for police abolition, some have looked towards European systems of policing, specifically the German police, as an exemplary model to which Americans should turn in order to rethink their law enforcement. 

At a glance it may seem that German police are in fact less discriminatory and less violent than American police. A concrete example of the real differences is police training. In Germany, police training takes more than two years to complete while the United States trains police for a measly 21 weeks. 

German police, however, are not immune to systemic racism and violence. 

Race is ignored on an institutional level 

In Germany, the concept of ‘race’ is not deployed in the same way it is in the US. Haunted by biological race-thinking of Nazi Germany, the word race (Rasse), is even excluded from discussions about discrimination. 

Last August, in response to anti-racism protests, German politicians from the Green party claimed that in order “to unlearn racism, the word ‘race’ should be removed from the German Constitution.” There is no such thing as race” they added, “there are only people.” Erasing conversations around race is not only harmful but is an example of color-blind racism at work. 

Legal academic Eddie Bruce Jones explains that “discussion of difference in terms of race is not a European thing.” Countries like Germany, instead, use ethnicity, which is more tightly scripted around social and cultural practice. Jones further explains that this phenomenon “orients the discussion around multiculturalism and integration rather than about racism which can take other types of forms that don’t necessarily relate to people’s cultural expressions or religious backgrounds.” Emphasis on integration puts the responsibility on those facing discrimination rather than on those engaging in it. 

For this reason, there have been few comprehensive studies of policing practices or trends of systemic police violence in Germany. A scandal last year reported that German police officers were found to be harbouring far-right sentiments. While the government commissioned a study of societal rascism in response to the scandal, interior minister Horst Seehofer stated that the study would “not be looking at allegations and aspersions cast against police” and would instead “consider violence and hate directed against police.” 

Systemic Failure

Although Germany’s ‘General Equal Treatment Law’, was implemented to protect individuals from discrimination specifically in the areas of employment and the provision of goods and services, it falls incredibly short in successfully bringing claims of discrimination to court. The Equal Treatment Law further excludes discriminatory acts committed by state actors. Police, therefore, are not subjected to prohibition of discrimination. 

A study conducted by Ruhr University Bochum revealed that there could be five times more cases of police violence than those that are recorded in official statistics. Criminal proceedings against police officers indicated an indictment in only 7% of cases while the dismissal rate was 93%. Of course, the German Police Union disputed the findings and claimed that prosecutions against the police were not due to a  “systemic failure.” 

An extreme example of negligence and systematic failure is the case of Oury Jalloh. Jalloh was an African asylum seeker who died in police custody in Dessau in 2005 and was found burnt to death in a holding cell. The police claimed Jallo committed suicide, while his family and activists refute that it would have been impossible for Jalloh to have done so on his own. The Working Group for the UN Decade of People of African Descent released a statement claiming that institutional racism “led to a failure to effectively investigate and prosecute perpetrators.” 

Jalloh’s tragic case is not an isolated incident. The Antirassistische Initiative documented a collection of deadly police and state violence interactions against refugees dating back to 1993 in which asylum laws, federal surveillance, border police, or deportation prisons are directly responsible for the death of the refugee or asylum seeker.  Other grassroots organizations and campaigns such as the Death In Custody campaign and Camaign for Victims of racist police violence (KOP) have dedicated their efforts to documenting racial profiling and victims of police agression. They also demand data on police violence and deaths in custody to be collected. Legal Academic Eddie Bruce Jones states, that while “disproportionate violence on the part of law enforcement is not a problem limited to the German context”, in states like the UK and the US, “unlike in Germany, there are statistics collected on policing practices including stops and deaths in custody, disaggregated by race and gender, which allows us to identify the disparate impact of police violence on those groups.” 

Police and Islamophobia 

There have been many cases of anti-Muslim violence in Germany. The most recent, February 19th 2020 in Hanau Germany, when a man shot nine people, eight of them, Muslim Germans of Turkish origin. 

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany issued a statement expressing frustration because of “decades of inactions on the part of politicians and security authorities to protect German Muslims and minorities” leading to “right-wing extremists to feel emboldened to commit such murderous acts.” 

It is not surprising why Germany’s Muslim community does not feel safe. Between right-wing attacks and solidification of Germany’s AFD party- a safe haven for neo-Nazis to openly express anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments- Muslims also face violence from the police themselves. 

Germany’s Muslims are victims of the war on terror. A hotspot for surveillance and police raids targeting Mosques is Berlin. In October, German police stormed several mosques in Berlin as part of an investigation into a coronavirus subsidy fraud. Around 150 fully armed and masked officers stormed Mevlana Mosque during the 5 am morning prayers. The mosque board stated that they were never asked about the coronavirus applications. “Open questions regarding the application” the mosque board stated, “would have been quickly clarified by simply asking. The payment could also have been claimed back.” The Mevlana Mosque board described police action as “unacceptable and disproportionate.” Some have even described this incident as merely political, as if German police needed an excuse to exercise violence against Muslims. 

Listen to Black American Activists 

American police brutality and violence is not a uniquely American problem, but it requires a uniquely American solution. 

American activists and academics such as Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore have called for abolishing police departments across the country, arguing that America’s criminal justice system is beyond repair. Gilmore stated that police abolition is about “building life-affirming institutions'' and Davis argues that “abolition is really about re thinking the kind of future we want.” Police abolition is about “reallocating funding, resources and responsibility away from police and towards community models of support, safety and prevention.” 

European and German models of policing should not be our goal just because it is less likely for them to use a lethal weapon. Instead, our goal must be to rethink public safety and end our reliance on law enforcement, and more importantly, listen to the black radical voices pushing for institutional and revolutionary change.