Over the course of the next few years, Rainer Stickelberger (SPD), Justice Minister of the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg, intends to improve the occupational opportunities for prison inmates.
In Stuttgart, Stickelberger announced that in addition to school lessons and vocational education and training, contacts with enterprises from the world of industry, mediated by, for example, social workers, are important for building a perspective of what is to come after serving one's prison sentence. "The best vocational education and professional training is for naught, if afterwards the inmates cannot find occupation."
The opportunity for earning one's own livelihood lowers also the risk of offending again. Already now there are cases of prison inmates who after being discharged continued to work for the enterprise they either worked for or completed their vocational training with while serving their sentence. "In prison, an inmate is suddenly given a perspective, because he makes the experience of performing a meaningful job", said Stickelberger.
In the school year 2009/2010, 417 inmates of prisons in Baden-Württemberg obtained either a school leaving certificate or an occupational qualification. Stickelberger pointed out that at the beginning of their detention period, many prisoners only have a low level of education, difficulties with language and bad experiences with school in general.
"The main problem is the inmates' motivation to complete a vocational training course", said Stickelberger. He continued to say that it is necessary to impress on them that they have a perspective in life only if they themselves do something towards it. "Of course, one motivation can be to obtain a favourable social prognosis by displaying a willingness to learn in order to possibly be discharged before completion of the full sentence", opinionated the former administrative law judge.
Other challenges of in-prison schooling include the differing detention periods and the inmates' varying degrees of previous qualification. These are met with by advanced training courses and exam preparations commencing in a semi-annual rhythm. At the same time, in-prison lessons are the same as regular ones.
"Those completing their secondary modern school leaving certificate with us have to pass the same exams and study the same lessons as those outside the prison system", said Stickelberger. At the penal institution Freiburg, inmates can pass their university entrance qualification and go on to study with the distance learning university Hagen.
At present, 44 full-time teachers work in the prisons; Stickelberger presently is fighting to ward off job cutbacks. Yet he states that it is difficult to win over teachers for in-prison lessons. They need to be able to cope and deal with this particular kind of students and with teaching behind bars. "To begin with, one has to learn to handle this limitation of freedom of movement", said Stickelberger.
According to numbers provided by the Ministry of Justice, a total of 417 prison inmates in Baden-Württemberg have passed a qualification in the school year 2009/2010. 177 of a total of 343 inmates participating in secondary modern school lessons proved to be successful. Of the 65 pupils studying for their GCSE, 32 succeeded. 14 prison inmates obtained a university entrance qualification (A-level) and 194 completed an apprenticeship.
In June 2012, 540 young people were detained at penal institutions in the Southwest; when beginning their detention period, approximately half of these had no school leaving certificate, either because the young inmates still were at school at the time of conviction or had left school prematurely.