Treatment of prisoners and prison personnel training in Germany

The article devoted to one of the topical problems of penitentiary institutions – the return to society of a prisoner who has served a sentence, provided that he or she will never commit crimes. This is the most difficult problem that arises in the course of the implementation by the penitentiary system of its main function – to ensure the safety of society. In many countries, the degree of prisoners’ isolation is determined by their categorization. German practice is based on a risk assessment of illegal conduct in relation to a particular person. The risk of violent acts is not necessarily related to the nature of the committed crime or the length of the sentence. The prison administration makes its own decision on the choice of the regime of detention. The penitentiary system (not the court) develops flexible security measures that can be changed in relation to the prisoner’s personality. All measures taken against prisoners should be based on the proportionality principle. The analysis of various rehabilitation programs for prisoners, used in Western Europe, leads the author to the conclusion that the most effective of them is individual therapy, which reduces the risk of recidivism by almost half. As a standard used in Germany, the author specify the principle of “risk – need – quick res-ponse”. The higher the risk of recidivism, the more intense the impact on the prisoner’s behavior should be. However, the application of this principle will be effective only when the selected cognitive techniques and practical training technologies coincide with the individual characteristics and the prisoner’s ability to learn. In addition, the results achieved by the prison administration must be supported by post-penitentiary rehabilitation programs. The article also describes the system of selection and training of prison personnel in Germany.