As of: March 28, 2024, 4:18 p.m
By: Paula Völkner
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Kathrin Wahlmann considers the sentence for rape to be “unfair” compared to that for robbery. Is the German justice system imbalanced?
Hanover - Unlike in many other European countries, in Germany there is relatively large scope for sentencing for rape. The Criminal Code stipulates that rape should be punished with a minimum of two and a maximum of fifteen years in prison. There is often debate about the level of punishment for sexual crimes. For many, the punishment could be higher and Lower Saxony's Justice Minister Kathrin Wahlmann (SPD) has now called for this.
“Sexual crimes such as rape and abuse receive relatively low punishments compared to property crimes such as robbery,” the SPD politician complained to the
Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung
. Wahlmann also called for higher penalties for other violent crimes, such as manslaughter. The former judge explained that the “imbalance” arises from the comparison with other crimes. For example, for Wahlmann, the minimum sentence for robbery of five years in prison is disproportionate to the minimum two-year sentence for rape or the punishment for manslaughter. “This is simply unfair,” said Wahlmann.
Criticism of practice: Penalties for rape are not exploited
Criminal law professor Elisa Hoven sees a problem with the punishment of sexual crimes in practice rather than in the criminal code, as Hoven explained to
Spiegel
. In an analysis of the convictions from 2018 to 2021, the professor and a team found that the punishment range was not being exploited in court. “If the judiciary focuses on the lower end even in serious cases, that is a flaw in the system,” explained Hoven.
Of the 1976 verdicts for rape, the majority, 46 percent, were sentences of two years or less in prison. According to the analysis, 45 percent received a sentence of between two and five years and only 0.2 percent were punished with more than ten years in prison,
Spiegel
reported . In the case of robbery, however, a similar picture emerges. Here too, the penalty range of three to fifteen years is not exhausted.
Kathrin Wahlmann (SPD), Justice Minister of Lower Saxony, at a press conference by the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office © Moritz Frankenberg/dpa
Criminal law is regulated by the federal government and therefore falls outside the area of responsibility of state politics and therefore also that of the Minister of Justice of Lower Saxony. Carina Hermann, parliamentary manager of the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament, therefore criticized Wahlmann's initiative. “We should therefore not continue to tinker with criminal law, but rather the Minister of Justice should do her homework at the state level in Lower Saxony,” said Herrmann.
(pav)