Internal Security

The study focused on the question of how people in Germany perceive the general security situation in the country and how secure they personally feel - during the day or at night in different places. In addition, it was also intended to find out to what extent people regard guaranteeing security as an exclusive responsibility of the state and its security organs, or whether they also see it as a task of each individual to protect themselves as far as possible from criminal offences. One particular area of interest was the relationship between security and freedom. On the one hand, the aim was to find out which value is more important to people in cases of doubt. On the other hand, it was to be measured which restrictions of their freedom citizens would accept in principle in order to obtain more security in return and which would not. Finally, measures already adopted and possible measures of the state to protect citizens from crime and violence were tested for their approval. The study consists of a quantitative and a qualitative part. The present data set refers to the quantitative part.

For the quantitative part of the study, a representative population survey of 1,500 persons was conducted as an independent survey using a standardized questionnaire and computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The basic population was the German-speaking population in Germany aged 16 and over living in private households. The sample was drawn in a two-stage procedure. This involved both a random household selection and a random selection of a person living in this household. The survey was conducted using the dual-frame method. The first 1,200 nationwide interviews were conducted on a 60:40 ratio of fixed-link/mobile numbers. The remaining 300 cases were generated by a disproportionate increase in the number of fixed-link numbers that can be assigned to regions. The data set contains a weighting factor with which the results of the survey can be weighted according to age, gender and education.

Topics: Perception of safety: assessment of internal security in Germany; changes in the general security situation over the last ten years; general perception of security in the personal environment; changes in personal perception of security.

Residential area: description of the residential area; assessment of the residential area by other people; rather rural or rather urban residential area; house or apartment.

Attitudes: assessment of the relationship between the values of freedom and security (in case of doubt, freedom is more important than security versus security is more important than freedom); responsibility for the security of citizens against various crimes: each citizen himself versus the state; willingness to accept various measures that would restrict freedom for the sake of security (e.g. longer waiting times due to stricter controls at airports, nationwide video surveillance in public spaces, etc.); general trust in persons.

Experiences: personal sense of security in certain places and at certain times of the day; personal experience or experience in the social environment with various crimes and offences.

Expectations of politicians: assessment of various measures taken by the federal government to increase internal security as sensible or exaggerated (e.g. thousands of new positions with federal security agencies, shackle for dangerous persons, etc.); trust in institutions of the constitutional state (police, Office for the Protection of the Constitution, public prosecutor´s office, courts); assessment of possible political measures to protect citizens from crime as sensible or exaggerated (e.g. increasing the police presence in streets and squares).

Demography: sex; age; highest level of education; marital status; employment; occupational status; migration background; party preference; religious community/ denomination; household size; net household income (categorized); willingness to re-interview (online group discussion).

Additionally coded: respondent ID; city size; region east/west; state; weighting factor.