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Current public debates about rising violence against police officers, and conversely, criticism of racial profiling by the police force, contradict the high levels of trust in the German police reported by public surveys. This raises the question of why the tension between the police and citizens arises. German Criminology has not yet exploited the potential of procedural justice theory to explain the shifting dynamics of trust. Empirical studies on how evaluations of police fairness and effectiveness influence police legitimacy in Germany have long been overdue. Additionally, there is minimal evidence of whether police fairness is experienced differently in different social contexts. Therefore, this study answers two pertinent research questions: (1) To what extent does trust in German police and police legitimacy depend on procedural fairness? (2) To what extent do residents in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods have lower levels of trust in police fairness? Consistent with international research on procedural justice theory, the results reveal significant effects of normative predictors of trust in the police, such as perceived fairness and neighbourhood trust. Using advanced multilevel modelling, this study observes the effects of two contextual variables (welfare recipients and official crime rates) on neighbourhood levels of trust in police fairness. The results reveal that the impact of personal assessments of the neighbourhood, personal disadvantages, and experiences with the police exceeds neighbourhood context effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police data and survey research provide different bases to inform research on crime and delinquency. We argue that linking police data on local crime incidences to criminological surveys allows for new insights on the role of residential and school contexts for juvenile delinquency and violence. We describe the challenges and solutions of combining these data sources in a collaboration between the state police of North Rhine-Westphalia – Germany's most populous state – and social scientists from a major German university. In this academic-practitioner partnership, data from a four-wave longitudinal study of more than 3800 students were linked to spatially aggregated data from the police crime statistics for the years 2013–2016. We discuss how the simulation of nearby addresses can serve as a tool for anonymized data linkage, how knowledge of the local data collection practices is crucial to evaluate the geocoding accuracy of address-level crime data, and how sensitivity and implication analyses can help to reduce uncertainties at the analysis stage. We also give recommendations for future research and data collection practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' 'Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment', disseminated an extensive 'Universal protocol' on interviewing/interrogation styles in summer 2021. Its implementation across the world is likely to be influenced by current practices in various countries (such as the rapport building and empathy employed). The aims of the present study were (i) to examine German police officers' estimates of suspect interviews in four different styles of suspect interviews ('humane', dominant', 'theme development' or 'neutral'); and (ii) to see whether interviewers' level of empathy is associated with their reactions to the interview styles. There were significant effects found in the dominant interviewing style regarding the participants' estimation of (i) interviewer fairness towards suspect, (ii) interviewer's understanding on suspect's thought-process toward the crime, (iii) whether the interviewer was aggressive, or (iv) humane, and (v) whether the interview was conducted well. Officers' empathy level only had an effect for the dominant interviewing style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1943 the Germans started using agent-provocateur units composed of members of diff erent police formations to combat the independent and communist underground movements in the territories of occupied Poland. Their members, pretending to be Polish or Soviet partisans, contacted local people and subsequently arrested or liquidated the most dangerous activists of the underground. There were several agent-provocateur units operating in the Kraków district of the General Government, and their most intense activity was reported in the Podhale region and in the vicinity of Miechów. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encounters between the police and citizens with migration background are prone to conflict. In order to guarantee intercultural competent policing, police services are staffed with officers who have a family migration background. Drawing on conflict competence literature, we examined the resulting benefits and costs for police-ethnic minority conflict management by employing personnel with an ethnic minority family background. The sample of our interview study comprised 14 German police officers. The interviewees reported on the role of colleagues with a Turkish family background as either conflict resolvers or conflict intensifiers. Data suggest that police officers with an ethnic minority background significantly contribute to intercultural conflict resolution. Minority police officers' conflict intensification can be framed as being a point of friction. We conclude that minority police officers are beneficial to police-ethnic minority conflict management and suggest continuous monitoring of minority police officers' roles by police authorities. This is the first study on intercultural conflict management in policing, explaining the conflict resolving and intensifying contributions of minority police officers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the role and weaknesses of the German security police and security service Sicherheitspolizei-Sicherheitsdienst (Sipo-SD) during Germany's occupation of Belgium in World War II, from 1940 to circa 1945. Its organization after being created in Brussels, Belgium, on July 27, 1940 and its three leaders including Karl Hasselbacher, Karl Constantin Canaris, and Ernst Ehlers are discussed. Topics include its place as a military institution in Belgium and its police forces including the military police Feldgendarmerie (Fgd) and the secret military police Geheime Feldpolizei (GFP), the introduction of reinforced interrogations in 1941, its victims including Jews and communist resistants, and its collaboration with the Belgian criminal investigation police.

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