How Sinti and Roma are discriminated against by the Berlin police

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facts

The police crime statistics for Berlin 2017 listed under "simple theft" 158,000 cases. As suspects were recorded 79,000 German and 59,000 non-German people. The number of so-called trick thefts was 2044 (of which 500 trials). As "trick theft in apartments" 1248 cases were recorded; the total loss amount was six million euros. It is therefore about six per thousand of theft acts; the damage amounted to eight per thousand of the total damage caused by property and asset crime of 642 million euros. There were 86 suspects detected: 53 male, 33 female (41 German, 45 non-German). The proportion of persons suspected of stealing theft in homes was thus 0.6 per thousand of the 138,000 suspected of theft. On page 48 of the report, following the case and suspect counts on trick theft in apartments:

"The suspects identified for this purpose by the specialist department are predominantly members of the Sinti and Roma ethnic groups, who have been living in Germany for many years and predominantly have German citizenship."

On December 7, 2018, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, addressed to the Senator for Home Affairs and Sport of Berlin, Andreas Geisel (SPD), and asked to explain and terminate the practice. The Senator replied on January 21, 2019:

"The text passage criticized by you ... is based not on the capture of suspects as members of the ethnic group Sinti and Roma, but on the technical assessment of the responsible for the fight against the commercial gang criminal service of the LKA.This assessment is published only in justified individual cases. "

On February 21, 2019, the head of the Central Council asked how the Sinti and Roma were seized by the LKA, and again asked for a conversation with the senator. This responded in April, the statements would be "from findings from the processing of the case and not from the collection of minority affiliation" and are appropriate in individual cases. He sees no reason for a conversation.

These family clans

The quoted passage is only two sentences long, but notable. The statement that the suspects are mostly Sinti and Roma has no statistical value. What should emerge from the fact that for 1250 registered acts a total of at least 44 suspects were referred to as Sinti or Roma is not apparent. The following phrase is spooky: "These family clans have been living in Germany for years now." There was no talk of "family clans" before; The word "these" can therefore only refer to the ethnic group of the Sinti and Roma. The identification of belonging to this minority with "family clans" is already missed in the beginning, since not all Sinti and Roma belong to "clan" definable families. The term "clan" is highly unclear and, to be meaningful, needs a careful and factual definition. The hint is outrageous, "these clans" lived "meanwhile for years in Germany". This establishes a definitional link between concrete suspects in 2017 and a population minority described by ethnic (Sinti and Roma) and cultural ("family clans") characteristics. Finally, it is unclear what content meaning the reference should have in the context: The fact that Sinti and Roma "live now for years" in Germany (actually it is 600 years), is a banal and for the context incomprehensible information.

The PKS case and suspect ratios do not provide a basis for statistical differentiation between ethnic groups within nationals of the same state. This applies to the assignment to the ethnic minorities of the Frisians, Danes, Sorbs and the Sinti and Roma alike, incidentally also for religious, ideological, political differentiations. It also lacks any indication of how and by whom it was determined whether the suspects were Sinti or Roma.

Therefore, the reaction of the Senator to the objections of the Central Council is not understandable. His statement that the cited statements did not result from the statistical recording of ethnic characteristics, but from "processing", did not answer the question. If an individual reference to the police is made during case processing, it can only be used for statistics if such information is systematically recorded and documented. If the multitude of individual findings were not evaluated and brought together, the statement that "predominantly" Sinti and Roma are suspect would be groundless from the outset. If this is not to be so, it must be based on a systematic-empirical differentiation according to the characteristic "Sinti and Roma". There is no third possibility. But both possibilities are equally objective and inadmissible.

policing

Tasks of the police are law enforcement and prevention. The PKS also serves as the basis for criminological research, for general security and crime policy orientation as well as activity documentation for the police. The detection of ethnic characteristics could theoretically fulfill criminological functions. However, assuming constitutional admissibility, this would make sense if significant features were collected and evaluated comprehensively and comprehensively : features such as language / dialect, social background, educational level, education and activity, marital status, place of residence. Such features are not collected in the PKS. Ethnic traits are not found elsewhere in the PKS than in reference to the "overwhelming" number of Sinti and Roma in the 86 of the theft-stealing suspects.

The news that more than half of the (86) suspects identified are allegedly members of the Sinti and Roma population has no value in the prosecution of trick thefts. Criminalistic findings about concrete perpetrators hardly have any general value; Conversely, general statements can not replace such findings. For public health prevention , the public information could at most have the function of encouraging particular caution and mistrust of members of the population. Even if that were allowed, it hardly increases the security of the individual potentially affected. It remains completely unclear what the citizens should recognize the members of the group, unless grossly simplistic, prejudice-based and empirically wrong attributions are made. Prevention, which warns potential victims not of certain acts and dangerous situations, but of the members of certain ethnic groups, is therefore in the first place counterproductive and wrong, irrespective of its constitutional problem.

Effects, desirable and undesirable

There are disadvantages to the theoretical benefits of ethnically tracking suspects for prosecution and prevention. This applies not only, but above all, if such a collection and conjecture as well as their publication are aimed at small groups of people who are socially recognizable as such. On the one hand, it concerns the effect of attribution of certain characteristics of criminal "affection" or criminal danger by members of this group. With regard to the members of the Sinti and Roma, this ties in with an especially long, sinister and human-rights-off tradition. In Germany, despite the genocide of National Socialism, well into the 50s and 60s, the "special treatment" of the ethnic group and the so-called "fight against the Gypsy sin" continued, often in personal continuity. Scandalous decisions by supreme courts not only denied Sinti and Roma reparation for National Socialist human rights crimes, but also continued the tradition of racist attribution of negative social characteristics almost unabated. By way of example, a judgment of the Federal Court of Justice of 7 January 1956 - IV ZR 211/55 quoted:

"Gypsies have become the subject of special public-force action in European culture as soon as they first appear, and this is due to the peculiarity of this people." The vast majority of Gypsies have been nomads since time immemorial. ...) whose behavior in human society is determined by this unsteady life, which means that they usually only have occupations that are compatible with this way of life (...), professions that They are not always particularly respected in the social environment, because Gypsies ... have largely resisted adaptation to the sedentary population, they are considered antisocial and, as experience shows, they are prone to crime, especially theft and theft Scams, they often lack the moral impulses of respect for foreign property because, like primitive prehistoric men, they are unhindered own occupation drive is intrinsic. They were therefore generally perceived by the population as a land plague (...) "

The fact that such open racist terminology no longer exists in court judgments today does not mean that the attributions on which it is based do not continue. In the everyday understanding, the corresponding prejudices are widespread, virulent and retrievable at any time; There are fewer inhibitions than other minorities. Not only in police circles, but - as the columnist can testify - up to current senates of the Federal Court of Justice is further the speech of the accused as "members of a mobile ethnic minority" (MEM). The term is - in addition to HWAO ("frequently changing place of residence") - another racist synonym for minority affiliation and a terminological continuation of "special treatment". It seems particularly absurd to Sinti and Roma, who often belong to poor classes and who do not have the means to define this feature as outsiders of a society with excessive mobility: German "travel world champions" operate linguistic minority discrimination with criteria of the 18th and 18th 19th century.

On the other hand, discriminatory and exclusionary attribution also strongly influences the self-image of the persons involved, their perception of the social reality, their own position and their chances for the realization of life plans. Irrationality of the attribution of others always results in irrationality of self-attribution. This processes the experience of permanent exclusion into problematic self-images, such as active demarcation, development of subculturally asserted models of assertion as outsiders, self-fulfilling expectations of lack of opportunities.

"Combating Crime" and Minorities

An orientation of crime policy and prevention to ethnic characteristics of easily identifiable minorities conveys a misconception of the security situation, reinforces irrational explanatory and understanding access, and promotes social disintegration. It conveys false images of crime causes and prevention and persecution possibilities. It is a symbol of increased focus on minority groups identified by features such as "clan", "extended family" and the formulation of ethnic "racial" traits. Existing criminality problems are thereby distorted and necessary solutions to tedious, long-term and risky solutions are replaced by populist phrases. At the same time, the security perception of the population is being manipulated irrationally.

By way of example, the reference of the Berlin PKS 2017 to "family clans" is exemplary. It builds on a - after previous, similar waves - recently again widespread focus of reporting on crime problems on so-called "clan crime", which in turn is stimulated and supported by appropriate police "combating" priorities and information policy. Also in this respect Berlin has emerged, in addition to North Rhine-Westphalia, particularly.

The term "clan crime" is by itself highly ambiguous and dangerous because this terminology is often blended indiscriminately with criminological categories of gang crime and so-called organized crime (OK). At the same time causes and effects are turned upside down. The "fight against crime" will be used to combat the so-called "clan essence" as such, for example, when "dropouts" for members of minorities are propagated: children, young people and women should not "get out" of crime , but from their own Families . The term clan crime combines criminological, criminological and sociological traits and facts. "Clans" as such do not commit crimes. From a criminological meaningful description under certain circumstances becomes so an equation of "(family) clan" with "gang" and "criminal union". The public content of the so-called clan crime but the public learns little. It is dominated by vague, blanket "conjectures" in both the media and the police dominate dramatic, but mostly vague "situation pictures".

In fact, in many cases no causal or motivational relationship between family structures, ethnic characteristics and specific crimes can be proven. This also applies if certain parts of ethnic minorities actually have an increased crime burden in individual cases. On the one hand, there are also correlations between foreign and self-attribution; On the other hand, this consideration almost inevitably tends to mingle correlation observation and causality assertion. This is particularly noticeable among the minority of Sinti and Roma: ethnic and cultural characteristics, which due to a variety of circumstances correlate with an increased rate of registered social deviation, are perceived as causes of this deviation. Simplified: A person is not a "clan" member in this view because, and if she is a criminal, she is criminal, "because" and if she is a clan member. Explaining criminal behavior as belonging to a social minority is a source of harmful, irrational misperceptions and discriminatory measures.

Strength and weakness

It leads to a distortion of perception up to irrational, panic-inclined fears of the majority population. How easily these can be mobilized, was last in the debate about a suspected sexual offense of several children and adolescents of low age (12 to 14 years) in Mülheim in the summer of 2019, because the possible perpetrators from families of Bulgarian Roma, one of them large Number lives mainly in Duisburg in Dortmund. It broke immediately, encouraged even by the Lord Mayor of the city of Duisburg, an excited public discussion about how and how fast you can identify the families (!) Of the suspected children from Germany. This was connected with the usual complaint about the alleged mass social assistance fraud by entering the (EU) Free Movement Act (in this case, Bulgarian) Roma.

Such mobilizations lead again and again to a distortion of threat perception. This applies, for example, to the ratio of the 36 billion euro child allowance paid each year in Germany to the actual levels of damage from cases of fraud by minority groups. It also applies to the perception of threats with regard to trick theft in homes and the objective burden on members of the Sinti and Roma with such acts. Finally, it diverts attention away from the problems of disintegration of poor sections of the population, for whom ethnic-cultural problems often offer only one screen.

Such attribution figures work the better, the easier the diverging group is socially identifiable and the more powerless it is. Moreover, the danger of minority-hostile, group-related fear of crime, irrational attribution of dangerousness and consequent exclusion, racist devaluation and deepening disintegration increases in times of social upheaval, rapid changes and general insecurity. Results of the "Security Survey 2019" of the BKA give rise to the assumption that this danger has increased in the Federal Republic in recent years. The circular claim that the cause of this aberration lies in the deviant "character" of the minorities themselves is part of the problem.

Of course, it should not be denied that there are many problems related to minorities, with immigration from and within minorities; this also includes a significantly higher crime rate in parts. This applies in particular with regard to problematic confrontations and competitive situations of population groups in poor, less educated and disproportionately negatively affected by social changes. Mechanisms of discriminatory attribution do not solve the problems, but solidify and reinforce them.

Result open

On November 4, an expert discussion on the topic was held at the Documentation Center for Sinti and Roma in Berlin, to which the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma had invited the Senate Department for Home Affairs, the Federal Police, members of parliament, representatives of the capital city press and representatives of associations. The senator, who saw no reason to talk, had sent to the event no representative of the Interior Authority or the police and the invitation also not answered. The capital press had more important things to do. An answer to the question as to why, as the Senator wrote to the Chairman of the Central Council, "in reasonable individual cases, it makes sense" and "appropriate" to include references to the affiliation of a marginal number of suspects to the minority of Sinti and Roma in statistics continue to spread. After all, in the PKS for 2018, the discriminatory instructions are no longer included. The scandalous formulations of 2017 remain unchanged in the online version of the report.