Violence against law enforcement officers, paramedics and fire fighters

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Anja Schiemann
• Subject Area: Criminal Law ; Criminology
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 429841280

The intention of the proposed project is to follow up on the GeVoRe I research project, which used an interdisciplinary approach to comprehensively evaluate the effects of the amendments to §§ 113, 114, 115 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) on offenders, victims, and law enforcement agencies. In addition to the research design, participant observations and interviews with third parties will provide an external perspective on the escalation process. In addition, further changes to the law from 2021 as well as any planned tightening of the law will also be examined. A discourse analysis will provide information on how the new ideas for tightening the laws are discussed among experts, but also within the police, in society and in the media. Furthermore, experts will also be interviewed on the subject.In addition to the evaluations in GeVoRe I, further case file analyses are to be conducted to provide information on dismissal and acquittal decisions in order to gain insights into when the law enforcement authorities and the judiciary draw the threshold of criminal or criminal-worthy behavior. In particular, it is also necessary to collect data on which parameters are conducive to a conditional suspension. On the occasion of the latest change involving emergency medical services and emergency rooms in the circle of protected persons within the framework of § 115 para. 3 StGB, procedural files are to be evaluated here as well in order to shed light on escalation dynamics but also on sentencing criteria. Finally, in addition to the newly protected group of people in the emergency services and the emergency room, other actors are to be included in the problem-centered interviews, such as the technical emergency services, prison employees, or employees of psychiatric facilities. Therefore, it is not only possible to assess the most recent amendments to the law in terms of evidence-based criminal policy, but also to examine the empirical necessity of further de lege ferenda proposals to increase the severity of sentences.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants