penitentiary
Lack of space and staff lead to release from prison
A watchtower of the Berlin-Moabit correctional facility (JVA). There is a growing number of suspects who have to be released from pre-trial detention due to lengthy criminal proceedings. photo
© Paul Zinken/dpa
Germany’s judicial system is understaffed. Suspects are therefore increasingly being released from custody. In Berlin, the case of a released convict caused a stir.
Too few staff, complex criminal proceedings and a lack of space: although some of the crimes involved are serious, there is a growing number of suspects who have to be released from custody because the proceedings were too long. In Berlin, a lack of space meant that a convicted clan member was released early from prison. The Berlin public prosecutor’s office said on Sunday that there was no space available in the forensic prison.
The man was sentenced to seven years in prison in September 2021 after a money transporter robbery for the particularly serious robbery and dangerous bodily harm. The decision to release him from prison dates from February 3, 2023, as a spokeswoman for the authorities now explained. “The convicted person was then to be released from custody with immediate effect.” “Spiegel TV” and “Tagesspiegel” had previously reported.
According to the verdict, the convicted person should be sent to the penitentiary after a certain period of imprisonment because of drug problems. “The transfer failed because the hospital of the forensic prison regularly reported back that it still had no capacity, referred to the waiting list and admission to the forensic prison was not foreseeable until mid-January 2023,” said the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office. The clan member could no longer be held in custody. The remaining sentence of the convict does not expire through the release, as the spokeswoman said. He will be summoned again in due course.
Procedures too long
According to the public prosecutor’s office, this is not just a Berlin problem. A move to another federal state was theoretically possible, but the situation there was “comparably difficult”.
Further problems in the judiciary are caused by the fact that criminal proceedings are taking longer and longer. The number of suspects who have to be released from custody for this reason is growing. Last year, at least 73 people were released nationwide because the proceedings lasted too long, according to figures from the German Association of Judges, which are available to the German Press Agency.
Bavaria at the top
In 2021, the judiciary administrations of the federal states reported 66 cases, in 2020 there were 40. The judges’ association sees increasingly complex criminal proceedings as the cause for the development, but also a lack of staff in the public prosecutor’s office and courts.
According to the information, more than 300 suspects have been released from custody in the past five years because the proceedings took too long. The association refers to a survey by the “Deutsche Richterzeitung” in the justice ministries and higher regional courts of the 16 countries.
According to this, Bavaria reported the highest number for 2022 with 15 lifted arrest warrants. According to the data from the “Deutsche Richterzeitung”, Berlin reported 9 cases for 2022 as in the previous year, while the Berlin judicial administration spoke of 8 cases for 2021.