Before the Judicial Ministers’ Conference begins in Hamburg on Thursday, Jochen Kopelke, the Federal Chairman of the Police Union (GdP), has placed strong demands for faster sentencing of criminals and a significant expansion of prison capacity in Germany.
Kopelke criticized the current system, stating that police officers act as investigative agents for the prosecutor’s office, yet their diligent investigative work is now often piles up in massive paper stacks. He described this situation as highly frustrating and insisted that it needed immediate resolution. He argued that both the judiciary and the police require crucial funding and greater resources through the Pact for the Rule of Law.
According to Kopelke, the goal is to prevent a collapse of the criminal justice system and prompt a fundamental reversal of current trends. This would require prompt handling of cases and placing more offenders in prison. The GdP chief stressed, “We must impose faster sentences to curb crime. We need more prison capacity and imprisonment in Germany instead of relying on probation sentences for convicted individuals.”
He asserted that the Judicial Ministers’ Conference has the power to counteract this troubling rise in criminality. Kopelke concluded by saying that police officers do not want to end up “working for the trash can” and are expecting a much stronger chain of the rule of law.
