11. Prison service for juvenile offenders  

11.1 Juvenile convicted prisoners

Until the year 1983 constantly approximately 1000 to 1050 prisoners were in the juvenile penal execution in Bavaria (of them about 150 juveniles, 550 growing up and 350 persons at the age of 21 years and more). In 1984 the average population in the Bavarian juvenile prisons has dropped for the first time to under 1000 prisoners. Particularly as a consequence of the demographic development the number of prisoners dropped continuously until 1992, since then it rises again, however. On the 31st of March, 2002 703 male and 29 female, altogether 732 prisoners were in juvenile penal execution.

11.2 Juvenile prisons

For the imprisonment of juvenile offenders the three juvenile prisons of Laufen-Lebenau, Neuburg-Herrenwörth and Ebrach are available in Bavaria, also a juvenile department for female convicted prisoners in the prison of Aichach.

11.3 Competence

In the department for juvenile offenders in the prison of Aichach the imprisonment of female prisoners is carried out. Besides the competence of the different prisons is essentially drawn according to the age of the prisoners, their criminal past, the duration of imprisonment and partly also according to the criminal offence.

Essentially

· the prison of Laufen-Lebenau is determined for younger prisoners,

· the prison of Ebrach is determined for prisoners with an age over 17 years, who are incriminated in the past or who are in imprisonment for a longer time and for prisoners who are older than 21 years,

· the prison of Neuburg-Herrenwörth is determined for the other prisoners.

(The prison of Neuburg-Herrenwörth)

Undependently on penal duration or criminal offence, male juvenile prisoners with an age lower than 17 years are allocated to the prison of Laufen-Lebenau. The 14-and 15-year-old prisoners are particularly cared for in a separate department.

11.4 Training and work

Following an evaluation in 2000 it can be assumed that less than half of the juvenile convicted prisoners have a completed school education and only nearly 1/3 a completed vocational training. More than 2/3 of the young prisoners were unemployed before the imprisonment.

Therefore special emphasis is put on the basic education and advanced training of the young prisoners and their preparation for work. The following school or school qualification preparing measures are carried out in juvenile prisons: Vocational tuition, acquisition of the non-classical secondary school qualification, acquisition of the successful or qualifying main secondary school qualification, lessons for illiterate persons and persons weak in learning. In the year 2002 beyond that 325 qualified vocational training places are available in juvenile prisons.

The level of employment in juvenile prisons is satisfying respectively good. Essentially work can be assigned to all prisoners who are not occupied with training measures.

11.5 Special groups of prisoners

On the 31st of March, 2001 150 young foreign prisoners were in penal imprisonment. The prisoners are integrated into the normal imprisonment.

11.6 Staff

For the juvenile imprisonment about 470 full-time employees are active, out of them 8 psychologists, 13 teachers and 18 social workers.