Violent Right-wing Extremism in Bavaria – An Empirical Analysis of Police and Judicial Prosecution of Right-Wing Violent Extremist Crimes

Right-wing extremist activities are recognized by political and societal representatives as one of the most significant challenges to democracy. This is evidenced by the alarmingly high number of recorded cases of politically motivated offenses with right-wing or far-right motivations. The central focus of the sub-project “RexStraBay” is to examine the handling of right-wing violent crimes by the police, public prosecutors, and courts. For this purpose, a case file study will be conducted, providing a comprehensive survey of all violent crimes registered as “politically motivated – right-wing” for specific years.

The aim of the project is to analyze the prosecution by the police and judiciary of right-wing extremist violent crimes from a criminological-sociological perspective. This includes, on the one hand, developing a phenomenology of violent crimes motivated by far-right ideologies, as far as it can be discerned from the case files. On the other hand, it involves examining the practical effectiveness of legislative amendments (particularly § 46 Abs. 2 StGB), which the legislature introduced in response to rising numbers of politically motivated crimes from the right-wing extremist spectrum. To date, the extent to which these political efforts are reflected in sentencing practices in Bavaria has not yet been studied.

Additionally, the project will examine the extent to which the victims’ perspectives were considered during the proceedings. In the long term, this study will also help to increase the proportion of right-wing extremist violent crimes that are detected.