“Understandable and sensible”: Ministry praises NRW input for double-national recording

The Federal Ministry of the Interior praises North Rhine-Westphalia’s initiative to grasp dual citizenships in suspects and victims in which crime statistics are now also grasping. That is “understandable and sensible,” said a spokeswoman for the German Press Agency. NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) had been sharply criticized by the Greens’ coalition partner for his initiative.

“The recording of all nationalities leads to more transparency,” emphasized the house of Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt (CSU). However, whether and when this could be introduced in the federal police crime statistics (PKS) of the federal government is open: “In order to be able to record the relevant data in the federal PKS, coordination with all countries is necessary,” said the spokeswoman: “This requires a consensual decision in the circle of all countries and the federal government, which in the past has sometimes taken considerable time in other criteria.”

Representatives of the federal and state governments determine criteria

According to the guidelines of police crime statistics (PKS), the state criminal offices are responsible for collecting the statistical data in each case, providing, preparing and sending them to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). “Decisions on the nationwide pc recording of all allocal participants are made in the PKS commission,” said a BKA spokesman on request. The Commission is subordinate to the Kripo working group of the Interior Ministers’ Conference of the federal and state governments. The spokesman said that there is currently no recording of multiple members. The Germans alone are captured in nationwide statistics for people with Germans and further nationality.

In fact, NRW has so far been the only federal state that raises multiple nationalities for crime statistics. So far, in the nationwide crime statistics, German suspects with another pass have only been managed as German suspects. From the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, for example, it was said that this was an interesting approach. “As soon as the first results from the procedure in North Rhine-Westphalia are available, we will take a closer look at them,” said a spokeswoman.

Different opinions in the countries

Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD), however, rejects the advance. The “mirror” she told: “I don’t see at all what the knowledge of knowledge or added value for police work should be here.” Politically, she also holds “the direction of this debate for Grundfalsch”. “German or German is who owns German citizenship, there are and there must be no gradations.”

Schleswig-Holstein’s Interior Minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack (CDU) said that a change in the PKS detection modalities had to be checked very carefully. “However, we are open to a fundamental debate about this, for example as part of the next Minister of the Interior Ministers.” Hesse’s Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) announced that he had sympathy for Reul’s proposal. However, he emphasized that such changes should be discussed “in the circle of the federal states and the federal government”.

Reul refers, among other things, to the risk of escape

NRW Interior Minister Reul had announced this week that double nationalities should be recorded retrospectively on July 1st. “If you want to see reality, you also have to measure it. That is why we have to take multiple members into account in crime statistics in the future,” said Reul of the “Rheinische Post”. In addition, several nationalities with regard to reasons for detention could be indications of a possible risk of escape and for escape opportunities.

The Greens, who rule with Reul’s CDU in NRW, were said to be completely surprised by the advance. The domestic spokeswoman for the Greens, Julia Höller, had clearly distanced herself from the enactment to the police authorities: the procedure brings “no knowledge of knowledge for the work of the police and pays an Afd.” The police union in North Rhine -Westphalia had also criticized the innovation.