As of: March 18, 2024, 6:12 p.m
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A young man raises his clenched fist.
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa/Illustration
More cases of violence are being reported in schools in Germany.
Rhineland-Palatinate is considered one of the safest federal states in Germany.
Does this also apply to his schools?
Mainz - The reported acts of violence at schools in Rhineland-Palatinate, such as assault and threats, increased in 2023 compared to the previous year.
However, damage to property, insults and trespassing as well as theft decreased over the same period.
This means that a total of 3,247 crimes in connection with schools or school buildings were recorded in 2023, 40 or 1.2 percent fewer than in 2022, as the Ministry of the Interior in Mainz announced at the request of the German Press Agency.
Of the approximately 3,247 crimes, 1,317 fall into the category of brutality and crimes against personal freedom.
That is 176 or 15.4 percent more than in 2022. This includes bodily harm, which was recorded 996 times (2022: 905).
Threats were recorded 246 times in police crime statistics, after 191 times in the previous year.
Robbery and extortion were counted 37 times (plus 27).
As in the previous year, coercion was reported 30 times.
Crimes such as damage to property, insults and trespassing fell in 2023 compared to the previous year - by 117 or 11.4 percent to 912. Theft and crimes against sexual self-determination were also reported less frequently.
There were initially only figures for the number of victims for the first half of 2023. If you extrapolate these over the entire year and compare them with the figures for the entire year 2022, a slight increase can be assumed.
However, this could turn out differently when the entire figures for 2023 are presented.
333 crimes against boys and girls related to schools were recorded in the first half of 2023.
In the entire previous year, 2022, there were 570. These included 318 brutality crimes in the first six months of last year (2022: 521).
240 times it was about physical harm (437 in the whole of the previous year), threats 49 times (after 64) and crimes against sexual self-determination 14 times (after 44).
“There is no place for violence in our schools and we will never tolerate it.
“We want to work together with respect and appreciation, both from the students, teachers and parents,” emphasized Education Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD).
In the fight against violence, the Ministry of Education relies on school psychologists in addition to democracy education.
“School psychology makes a double contribution to combating violence: when violence has occurred and those affected or the school community need support.
But above all in prevention, when it comes to preventing violence and strengthening the personality of children, young people and adults so that they can find other ways out.”
There is also the only institute for teacher health in Rhineland-Palatinate.
The country has also significantly expanded its training budget for offerings to prevent bullying and violence in schools.
Hubig emphasized: “In cases of violence, we want to look and not look away.
We therefore encourage everyone to work towards respectful cooperation and all those affected to contact the school supervision or school psychology at the State Pedagogical Institute.” dpa