Domestic politics
Strobl: Tougher penalties for attacks on emergency services
“Anyone who hurts those who protect us must be severely punished,” emphasizes Interior Minister Thomas Strobl. photo
© Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
Attacks on police officers, firefighters and rescuers are agitating. Baden-Württemberg is now campaigning for higher minimum sentences.
Baden-Württemberg is insisting on harsher punishment for attacks on police officers, firefighters and rescue workers. Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) is calling for the minimum sentence for physical attacks to be increased from three to six months, as the German Press Agency learned.
He wants to campaign for this at the Interior Ministers’ Conference starting today in Berlin. It is necessary to increase the minimum sentence in order to “represent the profound reprehensibility of violence against emergency services in the sentencing framework,” said the ministry in Stuttgart.
“Anyone who hurts those who protect us must be punished severely,” emphasized Strobl. In Baden-Württemberg, acts of violence against police officers have increased by more than 50 percent in the past ten years to 5,422 cases in 2022 alone. “In almost every second case there are physical attacks – and the consequences are serious,” said Strobl. The number of injured police officers in the country has increased by more than 60 percent to almost 2,700 in 2022. Fire and rescue services are also faced with an increase in attacks.