Violence against firefighters and rescue workers. Contexts, dynamics, consequences.

• In Event: Conceptual and Community Level Approaches to Violence

Abstract

Organisations of non-police emergency response have hardly been researched from a criminological perspective. This also applies to the socially particularly relevant questions of how strongly fire and rescue services are affected by violence, which situational dynamics unleash the violent event, which motives drive the perpetrators and which consequences the relevant acts unfold at the psychosocial, security policy and discursive level. The research project ‘SAGRE’, which was launched last year and brings together cooperation partners from science and practice, provides initial answers to the questions outlined above. With the help of a mix of methods consisting of quantitative victim surveys, ethnographic observation, file analysis, focus groups and problem-centred interviews with perpetrators, a comprehensive view of the phenomenon is being taken. On this basis, the lecture will not only present detailed findings on the frequency, severity and causes of attacks on fire and rescue service personnel in Germany, but will also throw empirical light on organisational, interactional, spatial and motivational aspects. Among other things, inter- and intraorganisational differences become visible, i.e. different dynamics of violence in attacks against fire brigade personnel (fire engines?) on the one hand and rescue service personnel on the other, as well as in everyday operations and extraordinary situations (e.g. New Year's Eve). At the situational level, the analytical categories of space, interaction and group dynamics can be used to develop microsociological explanations for the escalation of violence. Regarding the consequences of violence at the organisational and psychosocial level, the question of the role that images of masculinity play in the processing of violent incidents and in the acceptance (or rejection) of professional support is addressed in particular. Finally, at the perpetrator level, the causes and motives for the offence are reconstructed and specific legitimisation and rationalisation strategies of the perpetrators of violence are examined in more detail.

Authors

• Max Laube, Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin (Berlin School of Economics and Law)

• Alexander Bosch, Berlin School of Economics and Law

• Vincenz Leuschner, Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin

• Daniela Hunold, HWR Berlin − Berlin School of Economics and Law