A note from a visit to German prisons

I have just returned from a visit to German prisons.

I spent a day in Tegel prison in Berlin, which is the biggest prison in Germany holding 1,600 adult men. It has a budget of 44 million Euros, approximately double that of a similar prison in the UK, and it showed. The huge difference was the number of specialist staff, some translated as “social therapists”, psychologists and social workers based on every landing. The prison is divided into 6 separate jails, with a governor running each as a separate entity, with the overall governor concentrating, as he explained to me, on representing the prison to the outside world.

I wanted to visit Tegel because it has a reputation for industrial production. The workshops achieve a 37 hour week and the prisoners undergo proper apprenticeships and are paid the same rate as in the community, earning around 300 Euros a month. They can have up to 18 days paid holiday a year. I wanted to see the clothing workshop but this had been closed down, not because of problems in the prison but because the external entrepreneur who set it up ran into financial problems. The workshop I saw was producing furniture and wooden goods and had 45 men working there.

Tegel also has a therapeutic wing that has 195 places. There were no spy holes into the cells, and when I asked how they carried out surveillance on prisoners in their cells, the staff looked confused – why would they invade privacy like that? The phones are not tapped. The wing was not the most cheerful in décor; it was clean but painted in dull colours. But there were 20 therapists who each worked intensively with a small group of long term prisoners.

Prisoners are unlocked at 6.30 in the morning and normally locked up at about 8pm. They have televisions but have to have them sent in or pay for them.

I was told that prison officers in Germany have to complete school, have worked for a few years and then they have to undergo two years training. In contrast to our prison officers that are not required to have a single GCSE and have only a few weeks training. Managers told me that their philosophy was based on the idea that all staff, not just therapists, should be models for prisoners.

Berlin is a “lander” which means an independent city state, and whilst the ministry of justice oversees general policies, the lander each runs its own prisons.

I also visited Neustrelitz prison in a separate jurisdiction, Mecklenburg Western Pommerania. This is a prison holding juveniles and young adults. I was honoured that our visit was hosted by the Minister for Justice, Frau Uta-Maria Kuder, and we were escorted by television news and featured on prime time news.

The age of criminal responsibility across Germany is 14 but there were no children that young in the prison, although we were told it held two 15 year olds. The jail has 297 places but was only holding 215, of which 175 were sentenced, and 10 were girls. 27 were in the age range 15 to 17, 118 aged 18 to 21, and 70 were over 21 and up to 24 years. Sentences start at 6 months and most were serving longer sentences.

The prison appeared to have a very busy regime, up at 6am, work or school at 7am, 12noon for lunch (in a canteen, hot lunch looked ok), the working day ends at 4pm followed by recreation, dinner and lock up at 8pm.

There are 160 staff who include officers who run the programmes, apprenticeships, farm with pigs, do training (they take dogs from a local rescue and train them), and they offer real qualifications.

Young people undergo a “diagnostic test” on reception and a sentence plan is devised to address their “deficits”.

All well and good, and the most noticeable thing was how physically fit and articulate the young people were. They were all tall, looked as though they got decent food and exercise, and engaged in conversation with us, even trying out school English. Such a contrast to some of the poor little things I have seen in English, and Scottish, prisons. Generations of poverty in the UK have taken their toll and I am not sure things have improved much since Lord Kitchener complained about the health of his conscripts a century ago.

But, I was shocked at the Fixierung. This is a separate room, similar to our segregation cells, but with metal handcuffs in the floor that chain the prisoner in a cruciform on the stone floor. We were told that it has last been used in August when a young man was chained up for five and a half hours. There was an open hole in the floor where they could relieve themselves if they were unchained to do this, otherwise they would have to soil themselves. We were told a member of staff sits with them. There was some confusion about whether this treatment was a punishment, a suicide prevention technique or to deal with someone who was violent. I think my facial expression on seeing this gave away my horror.

So, a system that has so much to commend it. The Germans imprisonment rate is half that of the UK, with around 80 per 100,000 of the population. And, some humane and busy regimes with expert and caring staff. But the chains!