Debate about clan crime: When the CDU leader hits the shit

T hese were big tones that the chairman of the CDU Lower Saxony, Sebastian Lechner, spoke at the state party conference of the Junge Union in Cuxhaven at the weekend. “I don’t want to see these brothers standing on my street, I want to see them lying on the ground and see a police officer from Lower Saxony kneeling over them,” said Lechner.

The young Christian Democrats thought it was great, the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, among others, noted: “You’re finally getting shit done,” the outgoing JU leader Karoline Czychon is said to have said. There was a lot of criticism from the Greens, the SPD and the police union (GdP).

One wonders what made Lechner choose this picture of all things: Anyone who hasn't lived under a rock in recent years will inevitably have to think of Derek Chauvin kneeling on Georg Floyd's neck. Is Lechner now intentionally associating the Lower Saxony police with deadly racist police violence or is he doing this accidentally?

But maybe he just got carried away a bit in the heat of the moment. Lechner, who would like to be elected Prime Minister next year, urgently needs to work on his popularity in the country and what better way to do this than a classic law-and-order theme that elegantly plays on fears of crime and xenophobia - just not quite as clumsily as Ms. Weidel. Plus, it's a great way to provoke the Greens.

Although one can safely assume that Lechner really cares about the topic. After all, the most recent, spectacular incident took place in his home town of Neustadt am Rübenberge. Almost two weeks ago late in the evening, the driver of a BMW apparently drove into a group of people with full intention - twice, as videos from those involved and witnesses circulating on the Internet show. The car backed up once and drove into the group again before turning around and being stopped by police gunfire as it fled.

This is said to be the latest escalation in an ongoing conflict between two large families that has been bothering Neustadt for almost ten years. The police consider the two clans of different origins to be part of clan crime. Although it is a little unclear what “business line” they otherwise operate in. People in Neustadt mumble something about scrap metal trading and used cars.

The various cases of bodily harm and attempted homicide are the ones that are notoriously noticeable in court. Sometimes young men attack each other in front of an ice cream parlor, sometimes in the McDonald's parking lot, in front of the train station or in the parking lot of the vehicle registration office. With roof battens, batons, knives or now cars. About every two years things escalate a little further.

Now one could argue that they mainly harm each other - just like hooligans or rival rocker clubs do. Except that no one chooses to belong to a family. And of course every ordinary citizen finds it disturbing when such confrontations take place in public spaces and it is only a matter of time before bystanders are affected.

If you look at the demands that Lechner puts forward on this and every other occasion on the topic, they essentially fall into the category of “more of the same”: a more consistent approach, more police presence, focus on public prosecutors, confiscations and financial investigations.

Lower Saxony has been doing all of this for eight years - just as long as these two family ties have been making headlines in Neustadt. It would be exciting to see which of these instruments were used and what they achieved. But politics doesn't want to bother with such details.

The catch is that much of the big talk spewed here strengthens rather than weakens the phenomenon. This includes the mystification of big, dangerous gangsters, which the CDU also repeatedly promotes when it lumps clan crime and organized crime together, even though this only accounts for a small part of the cases in this area.

Of course, this is only right for the young men who promote themselves on social media with their fat cars or who demonstrate their enormous need for recognition on public streets and squares. In reality, it is precisely this provocative demeanor that often stands in the way of really big businesses - just like their short fuse does stand in the way of a planned approach.

That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. But they are not criminal masterminds. And anyone who repeatedly invokes the great horror because it suits them so well politically is also unintentionally recruiting young talent for the industry. Especially among those who have always been vulnerable because they have a lot to prove and little to lose.

Instead of engaging in primate dominance behavior and beating your chest, sober analysis and perseverance are required. In reality, the same old debate about the vague term “clan crime” prevents the actually much more exciting questions.

For example: What distinguishes these particular problem families from hundreds of others – with similar roots and similar immigration histories – who have managed to build a solid existence here? And how do you effectively dig trenches between the criminal and non-criminal parts of a family? Because they exist too. At least this is what the official situation reports emphasize every year. So how do you prevent the wrong people from ending up in custody? Which prevention measures have proven to be effective?

These would be the questions that would have to be discussed socially. But they are not suitable for election campaigns.