Thuringia: tense police staffing in departments

Thuringia has been hiring more police officers again for several years - an average of 300 candidates per year.

Thuringia: tense police staffing in departments

Thuringia has been hiring more police officers again for several years - an average of 300 candidates per year. However, the personnel problems in a number of departments have not yet been resolved.

Erfurt (dpa/th) - According to the Ministry of the Interior, none of the Thuringian police stations are currently occupied. The proportion varies greatly between around 92 percent in the state police headquarters in Erfurt and the Suhl criminal police department, up to around 77 percent in the Greiz and Eisenach police departments. In most departments, the rate is between 80 and 90 percent, according to a response from the ministry to a request from CDU member of parliament Raymond Walk.

The status of July 2022 was recorded. In its reply, the ministry pointed out that the underlying positions represented the "upper limit for the staffing of the Thuringian police".

According to this, the largest police station in Thuringia in terms of the number of officers is the State Police Inspectorate in Erfurt with 527 posts, of which 441 were occupied at the time of the survey. This was followed by the riot police with 503 posts, about 50 of which were vacant.

The CDU domestic politician Walk complained that there were too few police officers. According to him, an average of 85 percent of the planned 5,839 posts are currently filled. In view of a relatively high sickness rate, "the actual actual occupation gives a more dramatic picture," said Walk. According to Walk, the rate of occupied positions is only around 77 percent.

The Ministry of the Interior said that the number of new hires in the police service had increased to 300 annually in the period from 2021 to 2025. It is "expected to increase the number of police officers in the next few years".