The Prison Dilemma

Prologue

This book is about rational and irrational approaches to crime.

The fear of becoming a victim of crime is widespread, and rightly so. The German police statistics register nearly one million victims of crime each year. This corresponds to more than one percent of the population. These people are victims of assaults, burglaries, robberies, sexual offences, murder, and manslaughter. Then there is the dark figure of crime, encompassing such criminal acts that do not come to the attention of the police, those that occur behind middle-class façades or in parallel societies, social hot spots, or migrant quarters.

Policy and politicians respond with catchphrases. Recurring examples to this end include "each victim is one victim too many", or "lock them up and throw away the key!". Slogans of this sort, and the people's fear of crime to which they cater, can help win elections - one needs only to think of Roland Koch in Hesse, or Ole von Beust and Roland Schill in Hamburg.

Ever since the legislative competency for matters pertaining to the enforcement of prison sentences was transferred from the federal legislator to the legislators of the 16 individual federal states in 2006, the outcomes of federal state elections have more and more often determined whether the number of imprisoned offenders increases, whether more or fewer prisoners are transferred to less severe enforcement regimes (open regimes), or how many correctional staff and probation officers are deployed. It is in the hands of the state parliaments how many budgetary resources are allocated to the prison system or to non-custodial measures.

The experts all agree that these factors have an impact on re-offending rates among released ex-prisoners, and thus on the safety and security of the citizens as potential victims. In criminal justice policy, however, politicians' decisions are largely motivated by political opportunity, rather than systematic quality and cost control criteria. Sustainable concepts based on scientific results from criminology and criminal justice sciences are widely lacking, as are sustainable and outcome-oriented action plans for offender rehabilitation policy at the federal state and regional levels. This has been different in Schleswig-Holstein since 1988, a subject that this book also addresses.

The term (re)socialization already illustrates that the purpose is to subsequently correct undesirable developments in offenders' biographies. The socialization of offenders has often already taken turns during childhood and adolescence that have not allowed offending behaviour to be prevented. We are thus speaking about efforts to subsequently socialize people at more advanced ages - as youths, young adults, and adults. Negative experiences and behaviours have already manifested themselves, and a person's social surroundings and environment has also proven to be an aggravating factor. Rehabilitation is, therefore, an extremely complex process that takes a highly individualized and different course for each offender. Many obstacles need to be overcome, many detours and deviations need to be navigated. Successful rehabilitation requires reciprocity - the offenders and the society to which they belong both have to do their part.

Having devoted more than fifty years to this issue in the voluntary, professional, scientific, and political sectors, my main realizations and central reproach are that we in Germany, despite knowing better (and that is what appals me the most), are not doing all that we can to employ the tried and tested current state of knowledge in this field to prevent crime and protect victims. Society, politics, and the media are fixated on the supposed silver bullet of locking offenders behind bars. In doing so, the fact that 96 percent of them will someday be released again (more than 40 percent after no more than one year), and that, despite all reform efforts to the contrary, re-offending rates have remained largely stable over the last 40 years, is completely overlooked. Furthermore, imprisonment generates costs that are roughly 20 times higher than, for example, the probation support mechanisms that are at our disposal, which in many cases boast significantly more favourable success rates when applied to comparable clientele.

This book is about victims and offenders. It is also about judges and prosecutors, probation workers and social workers from non-political organizations, institutional staff across all functional divisions of the prison and justice system, ministry officials, volunteers, and many others who are active in the field of offender rehabilitation.

I have experienced and witnessed all of them, was myself one of them. During my legal studies in Freiburg, I volunteered in a correctional institution. My doctoral thesis was on the topic "Release and Rehabilitation" (German: Entlassung und Resozialisierung). For four years, from 1974 to 1978, as head of the Academy for Youth Work and Social Work (German: Akademie für Jugendarbeit und Sozialarbeit) in Frankfurt am Main, I was active in the education and training of social workers. As director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Work and Social Education (German: Frankfurter Institut für Sozialarbeit und Sozialpädagogik, ISS) from 1978 to 1990, I accompanied and supported pilot schemes in the field of criminal justice policy, for instance the "contact point for women offenders" (German: Anlaufstelle für straffällig gewordene Frauen), or reform endeavours in the context of women's and juvenile imprisonment, probation support services, and voluntary ex-offender services in several federal states. As head of section in the Ministry of Justice of Schleswig-Holstein from 1990 to 2005, I was responsible for improving the system of community and custodial rehabilitation. I have been able to further evaluate and pass on my experiences as Honorary Professor at the University of Luneburg since 2004, as well as in my position as chief editor for the scientific journal Forum Strafvollzug from 2007 to 2013.

Over the past decades, I have witnessed first-hand the activities performed and effort invested by all stakeholders involved, who work untiringly to rehabilitate offenders and protect victims through their organizations. Their commitment cannot be appreciated and valued highly enough.

However, words of praise will not be enough if the aim is to improve the offender rehabilitation system that is currently in place in Germany. Strategies, concepts, as well as legal and organizational frameworks require fundamental and desperate reform. By failing to meet this demand, we run the risk that more and more of the people who are actively involved in the social reintegration of offenders will give up or be forced to defend themselves against impending cuts. The frustration they experience every day is growing; their willingness to innovate is declining.

What we really need is a merciless and self-critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of our offender rehabilitation system and - building on that - a new awakening towards less re-offending, better victim protection, and more efficient use of the means at our disposal. In this book, I map out pathways out of the "incarcerate or rehabilitate?" dilemma - pathways that have already proven to be successful and practicable in numerous German and international projects, but which still remain largely the exception (and have not become the rule in any case) in the federal states of Germany.

In Schleswig-Holstein, over the past 25 years we have successfully demonstrated how innovative ideas in offender rehabilitation policy can become a reality: a scientifically founded concept, a communications strategy geared towards sustainability, resilient and viable political decisions, and a professionally steered implementation with accompanying success monitoring - this, too, shall also be addressed in this book.

All statements and observations contained in this book are based on my direct personal experiences gathered over several decades of personal involvement and dedicated participation. I have published enough scientific and specialist books on the matter. Now, specific persons and situations are at the centre of attention of this personal interim assessment. All actors, stakeholders, and selected events are exemplary for the reality of the issue, which is both diverse and complex. Some information and data have been changed in order to protect and observe the personal rights of the people in question.

We use the case study of the offender Timo S. to map out a typical social, legal, and criminal career over roughly ten years. We shall see how Timo S. became a criminal and which factors prevented his successful and proper socialization. What we will also see are attempts to rehabilitate Timo through imprisonment, probation, and other support agencies and organizations, as well as their very limited effectiveness. Timo's life story is representative of the vast majority of persons currently incarcerated in German prisons.

In the second part I describe my search for something better than imprisonment - the focus here is on research studies, pilot projects, and impressive key persons who have also endeavoured to improve the offender rehabilitation system.

From 1990 to 2005, serving as responsible head of section in the Ministry of Justice...