27 October 2021. Rossiyskaya Gazeta – Capital Issue No. 248(8599)

Written by Ekaterina Zabrodina

Translated by Elizaveta Ovchinnikova

 

In Germany, sociologists have come up with an unusual way to examine right-wing radical attitudes in the ranks of the German police. Questionnaires and surveys do not always show the truth (indeed, what a civil servant would openly admit to holding racist views?). So, scientists conduct their research directly in patrol groups of operatives.

 

The innovative methods were reported by Spiegel news magazine. According to the publication, almost every second federal state of Germany decided to follow this practice. The media wrote a lot about the growth of radicalism among German police and military officers. Over the past few years, 380 suspicions of right-wing extremism have been registered in the country’s security agencies at various levels. In the Ministry of the Interior of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, an internal audit revealed 53 such cases.  

At the same time, the country’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer zealously resisted research in this delicate area, the magazine notes. And yet, two large projects have been launched in Germany to study the manifestations of discrimination and racism. Sociologists have been instructed to interview online 300,000 police officers across the country. So, in Lower Saxony, social services employees will accompany operatives in their daily work – responding with them on calls, patrol the streets, examine crime scenes. And at the same time, apparently, openly listen and analyse law enforcement officers’ conversations. Berlin, Thuringia and Rhineland-Palatinate want to follow the same scheme. The joint practice will last ten months…

 

What about us?

 

Yury Zhdanov, Lieutenant General, President of the International Police Association Russian Section:

- What is happening in Germany is a witch hunt. Instead of fighting crime and keeping migrants civil, they spend energy and resources to learn what the police think and say about migrants. We face much of our own nonsense but we won’t get that far. Taxpayers’ money is treated more prudently in Russia. And more respectfully to law enforcement officers. We have a long-standing practice of joint patrolling with public order volunteers and Cossacks. As for the sociological study during the patrol, there is no such experience, nor is it needed. This will only increase the conflict. We also have a difficult situation with migrants, but there were no facts of radicalication of the police in any region.