Post-sentence preventive detention and related prison sentences
Project date range: since 2014 annually
Description
Recently the European Court of Human Rights and the German Federal Constitutional Court have established new rules for post-sentence preventive detention (see also "Post-sentence preventive detention and the no punishment without law principle"). Following these standards, new legislation was introduced in 2013 in federal penal law (s. 66c StGB) as well as in all federal states.
The new legislation is to fulfill the requirement that preventive detention as a whole must be "oriented to liberty and directed to therapeutic treatment". It includes regulations on scientific evaluation of detention practice, especially of the treatment efforts. The project is intended to collect some basic information.
Methods
Annual surveys have been made for 31 March of each year, beginning in 2014. Some structural features of detention centres may be described on the basis of aggregate data. For a review of detention practice, individual data have been collected. These include all persons in preventive detention as well as all prisoners serving regular prison sentences who may be subject to a further court decision on preventive detention after they have completed their prison terms.
Publications
Dessecker, Axel & Leuschner, Fredericke (2019). Sicherungsverwahrung und vorgelagerte Freiheitsstrafe: Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Ausgestaltung der Unterbringung und des vorhergehenden Strafvollzugs. (BM-Online ; Bd. 14) - Wiesbaden: KrimZ. [Download PDF]
Dessecker, Axel (2016). Die produktive Krise der Sicherungsverwahrung und ihre Folgen aus empirischer Sicht. In: Neubacher, Frank; Bögelein, Nicole (Hrsg.): Krise – Kriminalität – Kriminologie. Mönchengladbach: Forum, p. 473-485. [Download PDF]