The NRW State Office of Criminal Investigation's situation report on clan crime is now complete. Key facts from it have now been presented to the public by NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul. "Streife" spoke to Thomas Jungbluth about the background to the situation report and the recommendations that can be derived from it for the future work of the NRW police. Jungbluth is Senior Criminal Director at the State Office of Criminal Investigation and was in charge of compiling the situation report.
Streife: Since when has the LKA NRW been dealing with this issue?
Jungbluth: Arab-Lebanese-Turkish extended families have been an issue for us for around ten years. Back then, we had the first investigations into organized crime. In recent years, the united appearance of clan members in public and the delinquency attributable to them has increasingly become the subject of public discussion. Ultimately, this led to a focus on crime policy, which is reflected in the coalition agreement of the new state government. This focus also resulted in the demand for a situation report that reveals the extent and quality of this form of crime and provides starting points for police responses. At the end of 2017, we then built on the initial results of the KEEAS project (crime and operational hotspots characterized by ethnically segregated subcultures). The first family names that stand for the phenomenon of "clan crime" had already emerged from these results. We compared these names with other federal states and, in particular, reviewed them together with the experts from the NRW authorities, who have a lot of experience with clan crime. In the end, we went from around 50 clans to just over 100 different clans from which individual members have come to the attention of the police. Some with only a few criminal offenses, some with very many. To cut a long story short: the very intensive investigation since the beginning of 2018 has led to this situation report. And the findings from this situation report then triggered the current wide range of measures that have been carried out in a concentrated and coordinated manner against criminal members of clans since summer 2018 at the latest.
Streife: What strategy is the state of NRW pursuing on this issue?
Jungbluth: The state of NRW has adopted a "zero tolerance" strategy towards clans. Every offense should be dealt with consistently, but also appropriately and proportionately. Night-time raids serve to document the assertiveness of the rule of law to the outside world and to gain internal insights into the actions of clan members. These measures are intended to persuade those who seem to feel unassailable to comply with the law in future.
The implementation of this strategy has so far met with a lot of positive feedback in NRW: police officers have told the LKA how much they welcome the fact that this issue, which they have been dealing with at grassroots level for some time, is finally being tackled. I am often invited to speak within the police force on the subject of clan crime, most recently at the Recklinghausen district police authority. Citizens also give the NRW police remarkably positive feedback on measures such as the raids.
Streife: What is the problem with registration?
Jungbluth: This is due to the many different spellings of surnames, for example. Some people also change their names from Arabic to Turkish surnames. The suspects come from all age groups and have different nationalities.
Streife: How did you get the data on the suspects?
Jungbluth: We use the data on suspects that is recorded in North Rhine-Westphalia using the IGVP (Integrated Police Case Processing) software. We have evaluated these figures in the situation report for the years 2016 to 2018. In this context, I have a request to all police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia: the more data on clans is entered into IGVP and, in future, VIVA, the more accurate our situational picture will be. This requires high quality data collection. As the LKA, we are dependent on the detailed and accurate recording of incidents.
Streife: The high proportion of women in the recorded crimes is particularly striking, at around twenty percent. In your opinion, what are the reasons for this?
Jungbluth: This is because women, just like men, do everything they can to defend the family honor and document the cohesion of the family to the outside world, at all costs and with all the consequences. We actually thought that women could exert a moderating influence. That may be the case in individual cases, but our statistics say otherwise.
Streife: Wouldn't women also be a good approach for prevention work?
Jungbluth: It will be very difficult and require a lot of patience to carry out successful prevention work, because we have to deal with people's mentality, with a different understanding of social cohesion. That is a very challenging task. Approaching women is certainly a good approach. However, the police cannot do this work alone. The whole of society, including schools, is required. And you really have to give young people a reason to get out. Many of them don't have a good education. If a young person is paid 500 euros to wash the car of a clan boss, for example, they would rather wash the car several times a month than do an apprenticeship as a gardener with the city. If the biggest dream of young girls is to marry their cousin one day to strengthen family ties, then it becomes clear how difficult and demanding prevention is and that this task cannot be solved by the police.
Streife: Where exactly are the family clans concentrated in NRW?
Jungbluth: We see the most clan crime in Essen and the surrounding Ruhr area cities, but also in Erkrath in the Mettmann district authority, for example. The police authorities there have taken up the challenge of countering this special form of crime, which is often committed in an organized manner, with suitable strategies. Essen, for example, has formed a very large BAO. You have to bring in other partners in a very targeted way, especially the regulatory authorities. Many small pinpricks should make it clear that the rule of law does not allow itself to be danced around. Anyone who breaks the law will have to live with the consequences.
Streife: The issue of clan crime is mainly associated with events in Berlin in the nationwide public eye and not with NRW - and rightly so?
Jungbluth: There have been some spectacular crimes in Berlin that have been the focus of public reporting. But the scale of the problem is no smaller in NRW, the most populous federal state. We have now mapped this challenging situation for our federal state. We have held numerous events on clan crime and there have already been many internal police training measures. We have already come a long way and are working intensively with partners such as customs, municipal authorities, immigration and public order offices and the tax investigation department. NRW is well positioned in this area.
Streife: What makes the family clans tick?
Jungbluth: Clan crime has a lot to do with demonstrating to the outside world who is the strongest. The right of the strongest is defended and documented to the outside world in every form and at all costs. People believe that they can only rely on their family and nothing else and that their values are above everything, including the law of the country in which they live. They have learned this over centuries, as these families were not recognized in their countries of origin and were not integrated into society there either. This mentality can mean that the moment a police officer wants to punish a traffic offense, a telephone chain is alerted and then very quickly many people come together to prevent the officer from intervening. Many clan members also want to show off what they own. The phenomenon of "carposing" can be seen in this context, i.e. flaunting luxury cars and wearing large gold chains.
Streife: What consequences will this situation have for the work of the NRW police?
Jungbluth: We can now tell the district police authorities how many clan members have become criminals and how many multiple offense suspects they have in their area. The authorities must then develop suitable measures themselves to respond to this. To do this, they need to know why these people react the way they do. Does the district police authority need to adapt its operational behavior with this clientele? How can it take targeted action against multiple offense suspects? The solution that Essen has found is not necessarily the right solution for a district authority. This is why each district police authority must find its own way to do justice to the significance that the issue of clan crime has in its area.
Streife: There have been a number of raids in the past, for example in Essen. Will the NRW police carry out more raids of this kind?
Jungbluth: The raids began in the summer of 2018. They weren't really taken seriously by clans at the time and were seen more as a brief episode of police reaction. But these raids will continue. This has been possible in recent months despite the heavy workload on the police due to other tasks. Anyone who believes that the police are slackening their commitment is certainly wrong. We will continue to stand on the shisha bars and other meeting places of criminal clan members. If the shisha bars comply with the law, we will of course no longer carry out checks there.
Streife: Do you already see a change in the behavior of the clans?
Jungbluth: The behavior has already changed significantly. You realize that it makes little sense to provoke the police, because then there are quickly a lot of police. So people adapt. Clan members complain to the police about the raids. But the raids are an important means of obtaining information about who is in which local areas. The better information we have, the easier it is for us to conduct investigations against multiple suspects and against the people who are dominant in the family clans. We also expect the clans to shift their criminal activities to other areas where the risk of detection is low and greater profits can be made. Dealing with the clans requires constant adaptation of police measures. We always have to react to the situation at hand.
