What form of force may the police use? A research team questioned 3,300 people affected and conducted interviews with emergency services. The answers vary.
What are the police allowed to do? The question has come up again and again in Germany in recent years – for example in demonstrations and football derbies, but also in identity checks. Individual videos of police operations were distributed on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #policeviolence – for example when a 15-year-old was checked in Hamburg in August 2020, who was overpowered by several police officers because he was riding an e-scooter on the sidewalk. The police union (GdP) announced at the time that they could not see any police violence in the video.
The assessments of the use of force in police operations often differ widely. It is precisely in this field of tension that the results of the Research project “Body Injury in Office by Police Officers” (KviAPol), which will be presented in detail tomorrow in the book “Violence in Office. Excessive use of force by the police and how to deal with it”.
The researchers Laila Abdul-Rahman, Hannah Espin Grau, Luise Klaus and Tobias Singelnstein interviewed 3,300 victims and conducted more than 60 qualitative interviews with representatives from the police, legal system and victim advice centers. It is an independent research project and differs from the study on the everyday life of police officers commissioned by Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.
2790 investigative proceedings against emergency services
Whether police violence is considered excessive can vary greatly from person to person. In the summary of their results, the research team points out that the study refers to actions “which, from the perspective of the people evaluating them, have exceeded the limits of what is acceptable”. This does not necessarily mean that the violence is classified as unlawful.
In 2021, there were 2,790 investigations into police forces for unlawful use of force. In more than 90 percent of suspected cases, the criminal proceedings are dropped – according to the public prosecutor’s office, charges are brought in only two percent of the cases. In addition, according to the researchers, the majority of those affected do not even report the cases because of poor prospects of success or fear of repression. Only 14 percent of respondents in the study indicated that criminal proceedings had taken place in their case.
According to the study, most of those affected by excessive use of force came into contact with the police during demonstrations and political actions (55 percent), followed by football games and other major events (25 percent). Men were most frequently affected by the excessive use of force (72 percent).
According to the information given by the interviewees, it was primarily male police officers aged up to 30 who used violence. Apparently, several emergency services were often present, but they did not use all the violence. In 26 percent of the cases, the violence came from only one officer. There were often blows or bumps, and tear gas and water cannons also played a role at major events.
19 percent of those surveyed suffered serious injuries such as broken bones or injuries to joints and sensory organs. Those affected also reported severe psychological consequences.
Uncertainty about Legality
“Situations involving the use of force by the police can be described as complex, often confusing and tense interactions that are caused by the interaction of mutual (re)actions and external circumstances,” the researchers write in the summary of their results. Twenty-five percent of those affected said police intervention was the reason for the escalation. However, 19 percent also described that not following instructions led to an escalation.
In escalating situations, the use of force may be necessary from a police perspective. “The law conceptualizes police violence as an exceptional power that is only permitted within very narrow limits,” say the researchers. In the interviews, police officers repeatedly emphasized that the law was their guiding principle. However, it has been shown “that the use of force is part of everyday police work and is normalized accordingly,” according to the researchers. There is uncertainty and different ideas about what is legal.
The researchers found that the threshold for what is described as excessive is relatively high for police officers. For those affected, on the other hand, it was not only a question of whether the use of force was legal, but also of its legitimacy – i.e. whether the police action was perceived as fair and just.
“Establish Dominance”
“The police have a special power of definition in society, which can be described as functional dominance,” the researchers explain. It is precisely the task of the police to clarify situations in a binding manner and to enforce certain norms, interests and interpretations. Police use of force is a practice to establish this dominance in certain situations. But even in retrospect, the police have a special power of definition.
“For those affected by excessive use of force by the police, for example, a situation arises in which they can hardly get their rights without mechanisms that counteract police dominance,” say the researchers.
