Contact area officer

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The function of the contact area officer ( KOB , more rarely also KOBB ) or the official of the special district service in Germany is carried out by police officers . They belong to the police and afford, mostly uniformed patrol on foot or by a patrol car and alone in the daily service. Each KOB is responsible for a specific geographic area, which it has looked after over the years and is familiar with.

Position and duties

The main task of the contact area officer is to maintain contact between citizens and the police , largely detached from executive tasks, and to be the point of contact in the event of problems. A KOB thus serves to be closer to the citizen and can conduct a better risk assessment by maintaining contacts. Since there is usually a conflict-free relationship with the population, a KOB should not take any repressive measures. Nevertheless, he is a police enforcement officer and, according to the principle of legality , is subject to criminal prosecution according to § 163 StPO , so he is the investigator of the public prosecutor's office . This means that if he becomes aware of a criminal offense, he has to initiate criminal proceedings, for example by filing a criminal complaint , just like all other law enforcement officers.

The term contact area officer is common in Berlin and Thuringia . In the case of the Bremen police force , the designation is contact policeman ( KOP ), in Brandenburg district policeman ( RePo ), in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate district officer and in the case of the police in Lower Saxony and in Bavaria and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania contact officer ( KOB ). The Hamburg police use the term civil servant ( Bünabe ), while in Hesse the term policeman on site (SvO) is also used. Further designations in the other federal states: Police officer in Schleswig-Holstein , Baden-Württemberg and Saarland ; Regional official in Saxony-Anhalt ; Citizen policeman in Saxony .

First contact officer

The KOB service was first introduced to the Berlin police in the 1970s .

The introduction in Lower Saxony took place in 1978, which led to a lasting response from large parts of the population. Forerunners were from the 1950s section officials of the police, who carried out all investigations in their local area. When the KOB was introduced in Lower Saxony, there were around 300 contact officers, each responsible for around 10,000 residents. For example, at the end of the 1970s the Braunschweig Police Department had 31 contact officers for the city of Braunschweig, which has a population of 265,000.

criticism

Politically left-wing groups launched campaigns in the 1970s against the introduction of contact area officers, whom they referred to as snoopers and block attendants .

GDR

In the GDR the KOB corresponded in the broadest sense to the Section Authorized Representative (ABV).

literature

  • Hans-Georg Briesen: The contact officer in: Lower Saxony and its police: Published by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior. Police-Technik-Verkehr-Verlagsgesellschaft, Wiesbaden 1979, pp. 91–92.