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Apprentices for the middle police service in the Federal Police (symbol image)
Photo: Daniel Karmann/ picture alliance/dpa
In the competition for qualified young people, the federal and state police authorities have to work harder than they did years ago.
As the results of a survey by the German Press Agency show, fewer men and women applied for a career in the police force in a number of federal states in 2022 than in previous years.
According to information from the interior departments, the minimum height, which still applies in several federal states, has been reduced in many places in the past five years.
At the same time, the maximum age for applicants has been raised.
As a result, the circle of potential applicants grew.
At the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the minimum size was completely abolished in 2021, according to a spokesman.
Even with the federal police, it no longer plays a role.
The age limit for students who want to become a detective inspector at the BKA without a previous Bachelor's degree is now 42 years.
The interior ministries of several countries announced that cutbacks in the level of performance would not be made.
"With regard to the requirements for applicants, no qualitative compromises have been made in the aptitude selection process at the Saxony-Anhalt Police University of Applied Sciences, in particular the minimum requirements for passing the aptitude selection process have not been lowered," said the Ministry of the Interior in Magdeburg.
"The requirement profile was not changed and the level was not lowered either," emphasized a spokeswoman for the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior.
»Taking an offensive approach to the image issue«
The federal chairman of the police union (GdP), Jochen Kopelke, called for more efforts to recruit young people.
He told the dpa: "The economy has long since made progress, there the changed needs of young employees have long been taken into account in practice." The police are showing the first good approaches, but are lagging behind overall.
The image issue must also be tackled aggressively.
"It must be made clear intensively and aggressively what the police in this country stand for," says Kopelke.
Unfortunately, people often look on and do nothing as online videos are used to pour out “buckets of mockery or hate and hate speech” about the police and “brazen lies” about them.
Other problem areas are the sluggish digitization and the differences between different police authorities in terms of salary and equipment, says Kopelke.
What makes it even more difficult to fill vacancies is the unpredictable number of applicants who, once they have started their preparatory service, find out that the job is probably not the right one for them.
According to the Ministry of the Interior in Munich, the Bavarian riot police could have filled around 60 additional training positions in 2022.
However, the number of qualified applicants was not sufficient.
Some of the people who were interested in the training position offered would later have given up.
Saxony-Anhalt relies on task force, PR and taster days
In Saxony-Anhalt, after years of declining numbers of applicants, slightly more young people applied for police training last year.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, 1733 applications were received in 2022, of which 355 people were selected as police candidates - 290 for the middle and 65 for the higher police service.
In 2021, the declining number of applicants meant that not enough candidates could be hired for the police service: 300 candidates were planned at the time, but only 260 were hired. The Ministry of the Interior announced that they wanted to stop this “negative trend”.
A task force was set up to recruit young people and public relations work was intensified.
The police website was revised, short online applications and student internships and taster days were introduced.
"All cops are beautiful"
The Berlin police have long had problems with applicants for the training of around 1,200 new police officers per year.
There are enough interested people.
But the majority fail the exams, especially because of unsportsmanlike behavior or poor knowledge of German.
About one in six drop out during training.
The GdP in Berlin announced last week that the decline in the number of qualified applicants was "dramatic" in some areas.
Part of the blame for this are parts of politics, which have been facing the police “with great mistrust for decades”.
Posters on Berlin's Alexanderplatz recently caused a stir.
As part of their recruiting campaign, the Federal Police placed photos of police officers with the slogan "All Cops Are Beautiful" there.
An allusion to the slogan “All Cops are Bastards”, ACAB for short, which is popular with hooligans and left-wing autonomists, among others.
ala/dpa