Germany - Information on Country Independent Police Complaints Bodies

There are currently 8 independent police complaints bodies (IPCBs) in Germany. The institutions in Rheinland-Pfalz (2014), Schleswig-Holstein (2016) and Baden-Württemberg (2016) have been in existence the longest, while the institutions in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (2021), Bremen (2022), Hessen (Law passed in 2020), Berlin (2022) and Brandenburg (2023) are still very young. This is also the reason why the figures for only the oldest three IPCBs are shown here, as the younger institutions have not yet published any data. While the body has been established in Hessen, the position of Commissioner is still vacant.

The reporting system of the individual IPCBs varies considerably. Some have to publish reports annually; others only every two years. For this reason, we will only focus here on the figures from 2022 (which were the latest available (as of autumn 2023) and only on the figures from Rheinland-Pfalz, Schleswig-Holstein and Baden-Württemberg. German IPCBs have a right of initiative and - uniquely among project countries - they also deal with complaints from the police. In other words, police officers can also complain to the IPCBs about the police and the IPCBs can investigate issues that they have heard or read about.

In principle, the data from the different IPCBs is difficult to compare. The individual IPCBs use different categories in their annual reports, some IPCBs only publish the total number of complaints from the police and no further breakdowns, and some of the reports only appear every two years and not annually.

1: Total complaints in selected German IPCBs in 2021-22