“The police are an institution that embodies violence and should be abolished.”

Biplab Basu.

In Memoriam.

Police violence in Germany is characterized by a racist and discriminatory structure. The central importance of institutionalized police violence and the inherent racism of policing becomes clear when one looks at the abuses to which those affected are subjected. These range from racial profiling, intimidation and [...] checks to institutionalized police murders. The use of state-coordinated violence is usually accompanied by an official political discourse that represents a historical continuity of racialization and racism. This discourse denies and acts to justify the experiences of people who are criminalized, attacked and murdered by the police, which is accompanied by dehumanization. Violence is an integral part of police practice and is considered a legitimate means of maintaining law and order. Violence is also used at various levels in the criminal justice system. Police, prosecutors and courts are perceived as unquestioned authorities that appear to function truthfully, objectively and neutrally. However, a critical examination of the nature of the state and the political, economic and social role of violence within state structures is necessary to understand the functioning and cohesion of the police and justice system.

More than two decades have passed since a small group of people joined together in solidarity in the face of violence by German police and founded the Campaign for Victims of Racist Police Violence (KOP) in Berlin. The initiative is rooted in the work of practical solidarity support for victims of racist police violence and for communities affected by racist police violence, as well as the fight against institutional racism in the German police and justice system. To this day, KOP’s legal aid fund enables numerous victims to defend themselves in court against the powerful position of the police. Since its founding, KOP has documented approximately 300 cases of police violence and has also provided advice and support in a large number of other cases. KOP’s knowledge is based on the concrete experiences of those affected by police violence and police practices, as well as the consequences they have experienced both at the legal level (e.g. through criminal prosecution) and at the personal level, whether material or psychological. In addition, KOP supports court cases and organizes various campaigns and actions to question the role of the police in the state and the role of the judiciary under the premise of objectivity and neutrality, and to make the perspective of those affected heard and visible.

From the work of all these years, two moments can be identified as crucial in the cyclical mechanism of policing, violence and sanction. The first refers to the activation of the police mechanism of violence, acting as a kind of “gateway”: racial profiling. The second moment refers to what happens in the courts: there, those affected by racist police violence experience a massive reversal of the roles of perpetrator and victim, since they are listed as defendants and thus as perpetrators and criminalized. Consequently, they experience violence not only at the hands of the police, but also at the hands of actors in the judiciary, in the interpretation of the law, and in the implementation/application of the German migration regime.

Racial profiling as a gateway to institutionalized violence and mass criminalization

Racial profiling refers to police checks without concrete grounds, based on the racialization of individuals according to their appearance, nationality or religious attributions. Such practices have been repeatedly and publicly denied by police authorities and the federal government. It is apparently not a conflict for them that politically promoted racist terms such as “clan crime” or “Nafri” (police slang for “North African”) are implemented, used and normalized in Germany by police institutions, in the media and in civil society. Although racial profiling is defined as discriminatory and thus as a violation of human and fundamental rights, the legal system provides an ambivalent framework that allows for a legal basis for racial profiling to exist in both the federal police law and some state police laws, such as the Berlin police law. The police designate so-called “danger zones” in which they are allowed to carry out checks without cause or suspicion. These zones also become a projection screen for political conflicts.

The real experiences of those affected demonstrate that a significant number of cases of police violence are initiated by racial profiling, which is used by the police as a strategic instrument to criminalize groups of people. Racial profiling is a common and institutionalized practice that is also used by various security forces such as customs, the immigration service or private security. The practice of racially profiling migrants, Black people, PoC, Roma and Sinti, and Muslims is an everyday reality in places regulated through “law-and-order” policy, such as so-called “crime-ridden” or ”dangerous” places, for example in Görlitzer Park or at Hermannplatz, but also in trains near the border, at train stations, during subway ticket checks, security checks in supermarkets, near schools, especially in migrant neighborhoods, gentrification areas, etc.

This violent practice not only entails the possibility of humiliation, psychological violence, traumatization and re-traumatization, public repression, the performativity of racist political discourses, and comprehensive identity control through so-called identification measures. It can also lead to extreme physical violence, including death, false police reports, criminal prosecution, which not only have material consequences but also affect residency status, the systematic prosecution of poverty-related offenses, and the criminalization of entire migrant communities.

Furthermore, many of the so-called “mass offenses” such as petty theft, drug-related offences, violations of the Residence Act, fare-dodging, are a direct consequence of this practice. The practice of racial profiling reveals a racist orientation of state security policy, for example in the context of the migration regime and deportation policy, the fight against “terrorism” and “crime”, which is directed against minorities, precarious and marginalized groups that have been criminalized in this way, and systematically inflicts violence on them. The police use measures that are supposedly necessary to maintain national security and to prevent and prosecute crimes as justification for using racist violence. Police practice thus reveals the violent foundations of the state order.

Racism and a culture of cop camaraderie in the courts

Many people affected by racist police violence receive a penalty order from the court without any kind of trial, with charges such as “resisting law enforcement officers”, “assault” or similar. Those affected often come to KOP with the charges and the subsequent penalty orders. KOP supports those affected with writing an objecting to the penalty order, finding legal representation, and starting a court case. A penalty order is requested by the public prosecutor on the basis of the police investigation and must be signed by a judge. It is a criminal conviction by the court without an oral hearing. The summary penalty order procedure is a simplified procedure used for minor offenses. It is not uncommon for it to emerge after a court case that the police had no grounds for suspicion or that the police violated police regulations and failed to respect the rights of the person concerned. There are many cases in which, after inspecting and processing the file, it becomes apparent that the police have not told the truth and have contradicted themselves. Each of these cases could be analyzed to legally prove that these penalty orders should never have been issued. These cases show, on the one hand, the chain of interaction between the police as the investigating authority, the position of the public prosecutor, who requests a judgment based on the investigation file, and the role of the judge, who dictates or signs the judgment. On the other hand, they are part of the chain of policing, violence, and punishment that extends the effect of intimidation, persecution, and criminalization. Those affected are forced, both psychologically and economically, to deal with a matter that massively affects their private lives and results in criminal proceedings that can often last up to two years.

During the trials, we also observe a degrading and disrespectful treatment of defendants by judges, including racist comments and demands that the defendant fit into Germany’s social and legal order. The judgments are often argued as lectures, as in the case of a single mother and asylum seeker who was criminalized and accused of stealing a bottle of milk and another product that cost no more than three euros. For this minor offense, she was sentenced to a fine of more than 100 daily rates. In court, this disproportionate punishment was staged as an “educational measure” and legitimized with criminalizing racist narratives. It is almost impossible to legally prove bias (i.e. racism) on the part of judges, since they are at the top of the legal system. That is why it is taboo in court to name the racist mechanisms of the various situations in which the people accompanied by KOP find themselves, be it controls based on racial profiling, police violence or criminalization. This taboo is also part of the discourse of denying or ignoring racism in all state structures, and is legitimized and reproduced by all judicial actors, including public prosecutors and, to some extent, lawyers.

The role of the police in court is particularly dramatic. The police are part of the state apparatus and, like public prosecutors and judges, part of the same criminal system. Their presence and structural superiority is not only guaranteed by the institutional embodiment of the monopoly on the use of force, but also by the fact that they represent respect for the legal system and the rule of law, which gives them a superior, almost inviolable position in court. The police investigation file and the police version/account claim absolute truthfulness in court. At the same time, however, it is not uncommon for police officers to lie in court, to exonerate each other, to collude, to refuse to testify in order to avoid exposing themselves, to present unlawful situations of violence as purely group-dynamic situations, or to justify disproportionate violence by claiming to have maintained control over the operation. It is obvious that, even if they do not belong to the same professional group, there is a sense of loyalty, cooperation and consensus between the police, the public prosecutor and the courts.

For broader solidarity-based interventions against racist police violence

Understanding how racism is implemented in the legal system, in particular in the courts, is a step that opens our eyes to the fact that when we speak of racist police violence, we do not reduce it to police brutality or the structural asymmetry of punishment, but also understand it as a derivative of the legal system. When we speak of racialized police violence, we are equally acknowledging that all police violence is racialized and all police practice is violent. It is obvious that one of the main tasks of the police is to discipline the most disadvantaged population groups, relative overpopulation and the “enemy within” created by the state. Race, gender and other categories of oppression are intersecting factors that permeate them structurally.

The massive intensification of state repression and the marginalization of further population groups, with simultaneous militarization, are currently leading to an increase in police violence, to a rising number of arrests for poverty-related offenses and to the brutal (criminal) disciplining of “internal enemies”, for which the state is finding new forms of criminalization. In this situation, it seems urgent to reflect on how we can link the fight against racist police violence and state racism more closely with other struggles to finally end dehumanization, exploitation, and widespread state violence.