Version 7.6

Februar 2009

Freiwilliger Polizeidienst Berlin

Only two of the sixteen German Bundeslnder (states) have police volunteers, Berlin and Baden-Württemberg, although Hessen are planning to introduce them later this year. My visit was to two polizei landkreis (districts) of the Polizei Baden-Württemberg, who cover an area of 35,753 sq. km in the south-west of Germany.

The Polizei Baden-Württemberg has its headquarters in Stuttgart, and has 24,600 regular officers who are supported by 1700 members of the Freiwilliger Polizeidienst (Volunteer Police Service). The volunteer service was started in 1955, initially to police special events, but in recent years has become a reserve to the regular force.  I went first to the police reviere (station) in Hechingen, which is in their Balingen police district, where I met the station commander, Erster Polizeihauptkommissar Strmer. He has a staff of 42 regular uniformed officers and 10 volunteer officers to cover an area of 330 sq. km with a population of 60,000.

The first thing I noticed was that the uniforms of the regulars and volunteers were identical, although the insignia on the epaulettes were different. Regular officers in Germany have fifteen ranks consisting of a number of green, silver or gold stars on the epaulettes, it was decided that the volunteer service would have green bars! These commence with a single bar for up to five years service, and than an additional bar is added for each five years service completed. The bars denote seniority by length of service, not rank, and in practice members of the public cannot differentiate between regulars and volunteers.

Both regulars and volunteers carry the same officer safety equipment, a hard rubber truncheon, non-rigid handcuffs, pepper spray, personal radio and a 9mm pistol. Whilst on duty volunteers have the same police powers as regular officers, and are mostly deployed on duty with a regular officer, who is always the senior person irrespective of the length of service of the volunteer.

Applications to join the volunteer police service are carefully vetted to filter out ‘Rambos’, and select persons prepared to give a long-term commitment. The average age of new recruits is 30+ and anyone considering joining the regular force is actively discouraged from joining the volunteers, as recruiting to the two organisations is considered to be totally independent.

Recruits are accepted from the age of 18 and retirement is normally at 55, however volunteers may carry on until aged 65 subject to satisfactory fitness.

On joining the volunteer police service recruits undertake an initial eighty-hour training programme at their local station. This is each weekday evening and Saturday mornings over a period of six weeks, with training given by regular officers. After completing the initial training ongoing training of forty hours per year is required.

Volunteer officers are paid at the rate of £4 per hour, tax free, for all duty and training, and travel costs to and from the police station are also paid. Volunteers can earn up to £210 per month, tax free, and in practice this is the maximum the force would permit a volunteer to earn. At the beginning of the month each volunteer is expected to commit to the duties they will perform, and where possible to fill the gaps in the regular manning levels. Most volunteers work thirty to forty hours duty per month.

Both regular and volunteer officers take a basic one-hour driving test to obtain their police driving permit. This permits them to drive any police vehicle, including the use of blue lights and sirens. The two volunteer officers who drove me around the area were in a marked 3-litre Mercedes estate car, their standard patrol vehicle.

I next visited the Waldshut-Tiengen police district in the south-west of the force area which borders onto Switzerland, this is very rural area in the Black Forest. The district has 250 regular unformed officers supported by 22 volunteer officers, the volunteer I met was based at Waldshut police station and is a member of the Diensthundestaffel (Dog Section).

The district has two police stations and a number of police outposts in smaller towns, manned part-time by two or three officers. At night there are approximately seven regular officers on duty and they rely on the volunteers to make up the manpower. If an incident occurs at night in the remote areas it is common for units to take twenty minutes to get to the scene. The border with Switzerland is very irregular in places, and the German police have authority to travel through Switzerland if this is the shortest route to the incident. They have no police powers whilst in Switzerland.

The Deutschen Polizeigewerkschaft (German Police Union) is part of the Deutschen Beamtenbund (Union of Government Officials), which permits volunteer officers to join. For an annual fee of £30 volunteers are fully insured against injury, and representation is provided should any allegation be made against them.

Nationals of any EU country are permitted to join the German police as regulars or volunteers, and the German section of the International Police Association has recently voted to allow volunteer officers to join.

Recruiting and retention of volunteer officers appeared to be no problem in Germany, with a waiting list of applicants in some areas. In the rural Waldshut-Tiengen police district they only recruit every five years, as the numbers of volunteers leaving is extremely small.

I was most impressed with the volunteers I met from the Polizei Baden-Wrttemberg, and I believe we could learn a lot from them on how to attract and retain volunteers in the police service.

The German Volunteer Police Service can be found on the Internet at www.freiwilliger-polizeidienst.de/ and Polizei Baden-Wrttemberg at www.polizei-bw.de/

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