Predictive policing in Germany

Abstract

In ever more areas, it becomes evident that the transformative power of information technology – and so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ in particular – affects the administration of criminal justice in Germany. The legal framing of issues relating to the use of ‘AI technology’ in criminal justice lags behind, however, and is of high complexity: In particular, it needs to take the European framework into account, and has to cope with the German peculiarity that the prevention of crimes by the police is a separate branch of law, which is regulated mostly at the ‘Länder’ (federal states) level, while criminal justice is regulated mostly on the federal level. In this report, we shed light on the practice, on legal discussions, and on current initiatives focusing on ‘predictive policing’.