food at all times: It could be ensured that such persons were provided with food via companies’/caterers’ invoices being paid by making advance payments within the stations to the Federal Police Stations. This guaranteed that appropriate funds were available to pay for food should they be needed. Further training courses The Federal Agency discussed with the heads of the visited facilities the question of further training courses for officers in the detention area. In the view of the Federal Agency, further training courses should contain, beyond aspects of personal safety, strategies for de-escalation and the teaching of alternative actions and in doing so also take cultural aspects into account. Such further training courses must also enable officers to act in a controlled manner in extreme stress situations and to preserve strict proportionality. In this context, the Federal Agency for instance welcomes obliging all police officers of Forst Station and of Cottbus Station to take part in police training, dealing amongst other things with topics such as “Police and foreigners – protection of national minorities”. When talking with the heads of the facilities, the Federal Agency however gained the impression that the officers do not actually attend such special further training courses in all facilities. The Federal Agency would furthermore like to propose that further training be used to teach how to recognise the signs of suicidal tendencies among persons in detention, and to also draw up an information sheet on this matter for officers and persons being detained. Reaction: Police training was intended to retain and expand the basic police skills. The regular training which is required in the plan was to enable the officers to work to a professional standard and to attain a high level of specialist, personal and intercultural skills. Personal safety was said to be an aspect in the implementation of police training. The goal was, furthermore, to prevent policing situations from escalating. This was achieved through targeted communication and conflict management. Both were explicit subjects of training that were covered within the police training plan. The fundamentals of communication and dealing with conflict situations, and thus social and intercultural skills, were said to already be taught in police training for the intermediate and higher intermediate police service. Amongst other things, dealing with unfamiliar groups of individuals – e.g. people from other cultural backgrounds – was covered. Furthermore, the officers were made aware of alternative courses of action, and this was also to help them assess the conduct of these groups of individuals. In the field of questioning psychology, particularities of different cultural backgrounds were also included in role-plays. These topics, which were relevant to the police, were also constantly dealt with in subsequent in-house 28