Correctional system | Simply abolish prisons

It's that time again: German correctional facilities are bursting at the seams. Bremen, Hamburg, Baden-Württemberg, and Saarland are reporting over 90 percent capacity. In Rhineland-Palatinate, there are no vacancies at all, but the rooms are occupied by multiple inmates. Such reports usually lead to predictable results: calls for more investment in prison infrastructure . The Federation of Prison Officers' Union isn't far behind, calling for more staff.

It has now been extensively researched: More prisons lead to more inmates. Courts tend to fill available prison spaces. This is a vicious circle. Furthermore, German rehabilitation isn't working: Almost half of those released from prison reoffend, and many end up back behind bars. The logic of how years of isolation, often accompanied by job and home loss , is supposed to lead to people integrating better into society isn't clear anyway.

It would make far more sense, however, to push ahead with decriminalization —that is, to impose sanctions on fewer offenses and thus empty prisons. Classist structures such as alternative prison sentences, which de facto result in people having to afford to buy their freedom, could be abolished first. That this is a realistic demand became apparent during the pandemic . At the time, those sentences were suspended to minimize the risk of infection in prisons due to overcrowding. Incidentally, many other countries saw mass releases from prisons during the pandemic for the same reason. And that didn't bring the world to an end.