Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620
- 624)
TUESDAY 27 JANUARY 2009
PROFESSOR DR
CHRISTIAN PFEIFFER
Q620 Mrs Riordan: Dr Pfeiffer, you
mentioned that you work with bishops to achieve the rates that
you have done. Churches and clergy play such an important role
in our communities. You also mentioned youth projects and they
could be involved in that and with families. I think the key to
all this is changing the media attitude to things. I think they
could play a huge role in doing that. Did you work with them in
that way? How did it roll out?
Professor Dr Pfeiffer: I have
a very special relationship with the Church because, being a minister,
I went to prisons and preached as a layman very often; in the
church ceremony I replaced the priest and then I chatted with
the prisoners for one and a half hours. Very often I go to churches
and preach. When I was 17 I wanted to become a priest. Fortunately
I did not do that. I still have that belief that talking about
this is important. The Church loves me and so I get a lot of support
from the bishops on both sides, the Roman Catholic and Protestant
Church. I am always in contact with them. They get all our findings
and they are using our findings, for example, on empathy and the
fact that empathy is partly destroyed if you play for too many
hours those very violent computer games. This effects your empathy
level and the gap between girls and boys is growing in that respect.
That is of interest to the churches. We have an ongoing connection
and because of that it is easy to get access to them to write
in their special church newspapers and to make them an ally in
those public debates on punishment. The whole movement of restorative
justice was supported by the churches. It became popular, also,
because they said reconciliation, whenever you can arrange it,
is positive. That is church-like and they are helpful in that
aspect.
Q621 Mrs Riordan: And that is across
Germany, is it?
Professor Dr Pfeiffer: Yes.
Q622 Dr Whitehead: You mentioned
quite a lot earlier the statistics relating to the clear-up rate
of crimes, which I found very interesting. I imagine you will
have looked at why that is so. Is it that the police over a period
of time have got much more efficient or more resources are being
placed into the whole question of criminal investigation, or is
the public cooperating far more greatly than hitherto in terms
of reporting crimes and making sure that investigations are easier
to undertake? What would be the main factor in your view about
that trend in Germany?
Professor Dr Pfeiffer: One of
the main reasons is DNA, which is worldwide, improving police's
chances to clear up cases. Secondly, we have changed the police
profession. Nowadays we accept only people who have finished high
school successfully. Because it is a very popular profession they
can be selective. They may only take 15 out of 100 applications.
We have the best policemen we have ever had in terms of intelligence,
personality and motivation. They are better paid than we ever
paid them. The quality of the police is outstandingly positive
now and the organisation of the police has changed positively.
In many ways it is a consequence of several factors that the risk
of being caught is higher than ever before and that is a deterrent
and helps a lot. What did that letter to the politicians create?
It means that they have not built any prisons since then. They
stopped the prison building programme. When the Ministry of the
Interior published the findings of last year's statistics on crime
it only talked in comparison to the year before. They were afraid
that if they talked about 10 years ago then everybody would understand
that crime was going down and we would lose police forces. Then
the Minister of Finance will listen and tell us we do not need
that much money anymore for security. So they hid the real facts
and we made them public by talking about all that and suddenly
building new prisons is no longer an issue and it should not be
because our incarceration rate is going down anyway. That became
a public debate. I am very proud that we criminologists made them
understand that this is no longer necessary and that the real
issue is punitiveness in a society and this is related to the
public's misinterpretation of crime statistics.
Q623 Dr Whitehead: Has there been
a correlation in the extent to which the public is now willing
to report crimes if it is observed that there is a greater clear-up
rate, and has there been a change over this particular 10-year
period, which was featured in the article we were given, in the
relationship between police records of crime and the public's
experience of crimes? You mentioned a regional difference between
the amount of crimes committed and crimes reported. Has there
been an overall narrowing of the difference between the total
number of crimes committed and the total number of crimes reported?
Professor Dr Pfeiffer: Unfortunately
we have no evidence on that. It could be. Our facts come only
from the juvenile area. There we know that reporting went up dramatically
and we know the source, it is that policemen were invited to schools.
With the general public we do not have what you have in Great
Britain, that is, regular victim services where the Home Office
research unit asks the victim every second year or every year,
"Have you been a victim? Did you go to the police?"
You have access to data like that which we do not. We tried to
convince our politicians that they should put money into that
issue in order to have better control over the reporting behaviour
because it is so important for the crime situation, but so far
we have not been successful. We are lucky that we convinced them
that this research should be repeated again and again. We asked
45,000 but 20,000 could be enough. I would say that 20,000 for
Great Britain would be enough. It would be fun to have an international
comparison and you would be part of Europe in that sense.
Q624 Chairman: Dr Pfeiffer, thank
you very much indeed. I remember when we were in Germany you said
that "You in Britain have all the research but you do not
actually use it". I think in your session today you have
given us some illustrations of how powerful research can be used
in association with politicians. Thank you very much indeed. We
are going to proceed to another session, which is an appointment
hearing. Thank you very much indeed.
Professor Dr Pfeiffer: Thank you.
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