The negotiations had been going on for hours when Christine Langenfeld began to have doubts. “I ask myself whether the aspect of productivity plays a role at all in prison work,” asked the constitutional judge. At this point in the two-day hearing, the Federal Constitutional Court had already learned from the experts who had traveled to Karlsruhe that little is being paid behind bars because the services are worth little – because of addiction problems, weaning from work, whatever. The judge wanted to know whether one can really use the tape measure of capitalism here. Or whether there is a more forward-looking category. The principle of rehabilitation, for example.
Two convicts from Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia had filed a constitutional complaint to put an old and apparently still unresolved issue before the court. Is the pay for prison work unreasonably low? From the perspective of the free market, the question would be easy to answer, because the hourly rate is somewhere between 1.30 and 2.30 euros – a wide gap to the minimum wage of 10.45 euros soon. Here it is often objected that prisoners have, well, board and lodging free. For Manuel Matzke, spokesman for the prisoner’s union, that’s not an argument: “The prisoners are willing to share in the prison costs.”
At this point, the low productivity is often raised. 56 percent of the prisoners had no vocational training, 65 percent had not been employed before imprisonment. Then the drugs, the alcohol, the constant change – that lowers the productivity of prison work, said Marc Meyer, Ministerialrat in the Bavarian Ministry of Justice. In addition, keyword boredom, the jobs in prison are in demand even without good wages.
Vice-President Doris König, who is responsible for the procedure as rapporteur, first wanted to measure the two countries against their own goals. According to this, the work in the penal system should also contribute to the compensation of the victims, to the reparation and incidentally to the maintenance of relatives. And this from 300 or 350 euros a month, part of which is saved and maybe 120 euros are left over for consumption. You see a certain inconsistency there, said König: “You earn little, but you should make amends.” Big goals, Peter Michael Huber confirmed, maybe less would be more.
A smaller mountain of debt can make the start into freedom easier
Which brings us to the goals of prison work. For Christine Graebsch, lawyer for one of the plaintiffs, it is crucial that the wages of the work mean recognition for the prisoner. She didn’t make that up, but took it from the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1998, which once provided for a wage increase. “The prisoners have to find a new identity that leads to a life free of punishment – by finding something new in the work,” said Graebsch.
So rehabilitation is the key, not productivity. Caroline Ströttchen from the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Justice made it clear that the work’s contribution to reintegration can only be answered individually. Some prisoners first have to get their violent tendencies or psychological problems under control, catch up on school or learn the language. For others, work is an important factor in rehabilitation. “You should learn what a good life is,” was how Christine Langenfeld summed it up.
What money has to do with it is not easy to answer. Admittedly, the meager wages are not helpful. “There is no researcher who says that resocialization works better if you pay badly,” Graebsch said. On the other hand, hardly anyone demanded that the prisoners absolutely had to be given more cash for cigarettes, telephones and television in prison. A word frequently heard from the judges’ bench was “gross principle”. The idea behind this is to pay higher wages on paper, but to divert larger shares for prison costs, debt repayment or maintenance obligations. It doesn’t have to be a sham. With a reduced mountain of debt, the start to freedom would be easier. And those who pay the maintenance for their children themselves can “experience self-efficacy,” said Graebsch.
After the hearing, there should be no doubt that Karlsruhe will give an impetus to reform with the judgment in a few months. How specific it can be is more complicated to answer. There has been much talk of rewarding work not just with money, but with generous reduced sentences or a waiver of court costs. In any case, every bridge to a life free of punishment is worthwhile, warned Manuel Matzke. The union leader, once in prison himself, said: “At some point, those who are in prison will be our neighbors.”