Violence in the public service: Every fourth employee is affected

Admission control and security service in front of the town hall or notices in district offices asking that employees be treated with respect and that no weapons be carried: In Berlin, such measures have been necessary for a long time.

Attacks on employees in the public sector have not only apparently increased in recent years. A report commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, which Interior Minister Nancy Faeser presented on Friday together with the head of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), Yasmin Fahimi, now shows how bad the safety situation is for employees.

The purpose of the study is to create a “strategy for dealing with violence against employees”. It is not just about physical harm and sexual harassment, but also about violence in the form of insults or threats. The study covers the period between 2019 and September 2021. A total of over 10,000 employees and more than 1,600 authorities were interviewed. Violence against police officers was not part of the investigation.

Every fourth employee has experienced violence

Almost a quarter of all respondents stated that they had already experienced violence. Most affected are employees of public order offices, bailiffs and employees in citizen offices.

Violence in the form of insults is the most frequently documented. When employees have been the victim of insults, this is rarely an isolated case. Almost half of all victims reported being insulted more than three times a year, and 22 percent of those affected were even insulted at least ten times a year.

According to the investigation, there has not been a manslaughter offense since 2019. A case caused a stir ten years ago when a 52-year-old man stabbed a 32-year-old employee in a job center in the city of Neuss.

Men are more often victims

The perpetrators attack men about twice as often as women. When it comes to reporting serious offenses such as bodily harm, the number of men affected is eight times higher than that of women employees. Women, on the other hand, are more frequently affected by sexual harassment than men.

Superiors want to cover up violence

According to the study, only a third of all cases are reported, the number of unreported cases is 70 percent. Fire brigade and rescue services in particular only report every fifth offense on average. The number of unreported cases decreases with the severity of the offence, for example less than 20 percent of insults are reported. But even in the case of serious crimes such as bodily harm, only 62 percent of cases are reported.

Why are so many victims silent about the attacks? More than half of the employees state that they would not expect their situation to improve. About a third thinks that the bureaucratic hurdle is too high. A fifth of the respondents indicated that the competent authority would not offer any support for them.

Victims of violence who work in schools or prisons are also particularly likely to say that they have been instructed by supervisors not to report the crime against them.

In a press release, Faeser said she wants to “do more for the people who make our country run every day.” She called for strict prosecution of the perpetrators and more support for those affected. She also promised “better protection for employees”. The head of the DGB, Fahimi, would like the “reporting process to be as uncomplicated as possible” for the employees.

The German Research Institute for Public Administration published one Catalog for the prevention of violence in the public sector. This examines strategies to prevent attacks. For example, “risk-aware office equipment” is considered to be very efficient because it is inexpensive. It is recommended that punches or scissors are not kept within reach of the customer as they could be used as a projectile or weapon.

The obvious aspect of reducing party traffic in the offices through digitization and thus protecting employees from aggressive citizens cannot be found in the catalogue.