Federal Constitutional Court reviews low prisoner wages

A “jail shop” recently opened in Castrop-Rauxel, in the middle of the city centre. There are wooden trucks for 40 euros, birdhouses or colliery towers made of plywood. Everything made in prison workshops, made in Germany, if you will. Prisoners even take care of the service in the customer room, only the checkout is done by an official. Elsewhere, too, people are eagerly producing behind bars. Office chairs are assembled in the Münster prison, in Attendorn they carpenter with solid larch wood, in the Werl prison arcades, Christmas tree decorations and rodent houses for dwarf hamsters and giant rabbits are made.

There are about 44,000 prisoners in Germany. Not all of them work, but there is an obligation to work in twelve of the 16 federal states; only in Saxony, Brandenburg, Reinland-Palatinate and Saarland can the inmates decide for themselves whether they want to work. Work kills the time, at least you can get out of the cell. You just don’t get rich with it, not even after ten years; prison wages are meager. So far anyway, because that could change soon. From Wednesday on, the Federal Constitutional Court will hear the complaints of two prisoners from Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia for two days. The verdict will follow in a few months. But when the judges in Karlsruhe deal so intensively with a topic, you get the feeling: they want to get serious about it.

Hourly wage between 1.33 euros and 2.22 euros

The remuneration behind bars is based on a “basic wage” that is nine percent of the average salary of the statutory pension insurance. This currently corresponds to a daily rate of 14.21 euros, of which there are upwards and downwards deviations – depending on qualifications. For an eight-hour day, the range is from 1.33 to 2.22 per hour. It’s still not enough, says Manuel Matzke, spokesman for the prisoner’s union GG/BO. “The system must convey that honest work pays off.”

It seems that the prison work is initially worthwhile for the companies that produce there. Because in addition to the “own businesses” of the prisons – mostly carpenters or locksmiths – the so-called “entrepreneurial businesses” are the second mainstay. In other words, external employers who prefer the nearby penal system to the distant low-wage country. A few years ago, the Correctiv research network published a – by no means exhaustive – list of 90 company names. A few big names are among them, such as BMW, Daimler, Miele and VW. Or MTU, a sought-after employer in the Straubing prison, where top executives can sometimes earn 600 euros a month. Otherwise, there is a mirror image of the middle class, from the production of fittings to the manufacture of lights or haberdashery to pallets, tiles or fans.

Incidentally, the factory buildings behind the prison walls flush money into the state budgets. Bavaria takes in around 30 million euros a year from its own and entrepreneurial businesses, and the total has sometimes been over 40 million. Which of course does not outweigh the 400 million euro expensive Bavarian penal system. NRW generates a good 41 million euros, but spends almost 43 million euros on factory service alone. Profit looks different. Nevertheless, the companies benefit from the low hourly rates, the state budgets from the surplus – only the workers fall through the cracks, criticizes Manuel Matzke: “We are demanding the statutory minimum wage.” Gladly also against participation in detention costs, he adds.

The statutory minimum wage has just risen to 9.82 euros. If this were the new measure, “then half of those currently working would be unemployed,” says Frank Arloth, director of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice. Entrepreneurs would emigrate, their own businesses would be unproductive. Because as attractive as the low wages for companies may appear on paper: all in all, the qualifications of prisoners are far below the standard on the open market. Various studies estimate that up to two-thirds of inmates have not completed vocational training, and nearly half do not even have a school-leaving certificate. A few years ago in North Rhine-Westphalia, an evaluation of inmates in juvenile detention centers revealed that two-thirds did not have a diploma. And the majority of those who are imprisoned did not have a regular job before imprisonment. The federal working group for help for offenders is therefore lowering its wage expectations: it is demanding an increase in the basic wage from nine to 15 percent, which would put the daily rate at over 23 euros. That would be one step.

It is only since the Weimar Republic that work in prison has been said to help with rehabilitation

The Federal Constitutional Court will not be so interested in the profit margins of prison operations anyway. The keyword on which the procedure will be decided is resocialization. Historically, labor was intended more to increase punishment, with prisoners toiling in quarries or on galleys. Later they simply wanted to take advantage of their labor power; in Nuremberg, in the late 16th century, beggars and criminals were used to sweep the streets, with iron shackles and chains on their ankles. Only in the 17th and 18th centuries did the idea of ​​using punishment for “reform” gradually develop. In the Weimar Republic, it was Minister of Justice Gustav Radbruch who promoted the relevant reforms. The GDR also wanted to educate the prisoners to “productive work”. And in the Federal Republic, since a fundamental reform in 1977, resocialization has been the sole aim of the penal system.

Now, employment in the penal system can contribute to reintegration into professional and social life in many ways: through training in punctuality, through practicing the ability to deal with conflicts and, last but not least, through simple further training. But money also plays a role. Already to pay off debts that otherwise make it difficult to start life after imprisonment. The larger part of the salary is saved as a bridging allowance for the time after the dismissal, only three sevenths are available as “house money” for consumption.

Work should be worthwhile

But the fee also has a very fundamental function. It is intended to make people aware of the value of work for a successful life. Paid work in prison can only contribute to resocialization “if the prisoner can be made aware, through the level of pay he or she receives, that gainful employment makes sense to create a livelihood.” This is how the Federal Constitutional Court put it in a judgment of 1998. It declared the basic wage of five percent to be unconstitutional and caused it to be raised to nine percent.

At the same time, the court brought another currency into play, freedom. The prisoners should be able to work out “free days”. In the meantime, anyone who works two months at a time in Bavaria’s prisons can be released one day earlier. In NRW there are two days for three months. Not exactly lavish either. For years, there have also been calls for pension entitlements to be built up in order to save criminals from poverty in old age – so far without success.

Because the state is skimping on money and freedom, most observers expect that another impetus will follow from Karlsruhe. It is true that there is no definitive empirical confirmation of the positive effect of prison work. In a study, however, the scientist Katrin Hüttenrauch establishes a clear connection between low wages and prisoner frustration. The working prisoner has the feeling that he is being exploited by the state. Christine Graebsch, lawyer for the Bavarian complainant, sees it that way. Criminological research has shown that work in prison has a resocializing effect, particularly because of the recognition that comes with a reasonable wage. “From that perspective, what the prisoners get is devastating. The recognition component is completely missing.”