When police officers commit crimes in the course of their duties, they are rarely convicted by a court of law. Their victims, on the other hand, often have to face charges and lengthy lawsuits themselves. This absurdity is caused by a system that has police violence investigated not independently but by internal departments of the police itself.
“In 2015, an average of 54.8 percent of all criminal cases were dropped, while the figure for cases against police officers was 97.7 percent. In the same year, there were about 2200 cases of police violence.”
The radio feature “Offenders in uniform. Police Violence in Germany” by Marie von Kuck traces various cases of such structural police violence in a critical, detailed and well-founded manner. Among others, the author gives a voice to a victim whose economic existence was destroyed by years of going through the courts. Several tens of thousands of euros in debt, only to end up being proven right in court, but no longer having a livelihood. It is structures like these, among others, that make the fight against police violence so difficult. Victims often only find help from independent counseling centers and activist initiatives such as the “Campaign for Victims of Racist Police Violence (KOP),” whose work we have already presented here.
The manuscript of the feature is available for free download here.