14. Prison staff 

14.1 Situation of employment

Altogether 4.969 employments are available for the prisons (without training places). They are divided as follows:

With doctors, clergymen, psychologists and teachers farther part-time workers are available which are employed first of all in prisons in which the prisoner's number does not justify the employment of a full-time worker.

Employments for employees on revoke in preparation service (trainees):

14.2 Tasks

As far as it does not become already obvious from their previous professional training (doctors, psychologists, ministers, teachers, social workers, administration service), the employees are employed in the following fields of activity:

a) General prison service

The uniformed employees of this career become active not only in the area of order and security. They rather are trained also for a co-operation with the tasks of treatment in the prisons and accordingly work as care employees, in housing-groups, in education measures and in areas of leisure time activities (handicraft, sport, discussion-groups and others).

Regularly women are also employed in the general prison service in prisons for male prisoners.

b) Workshop service

In Bavaria fundamentally only staff will be employed who has passed the mastership examination in a vocation or a comparable vocational examination with the competence for training.

The leading of the working in the prisons working facilities, the monitoring of the technical work and the education of the prisoners in the workshops and training workshops are parts of their tasks.

c) Care of the sick service

About 200 employees are employed in the medical departments of the prisons in the area of caring for the sick; 170 of them posess an official acknowledgement as orderly.

14.3 Applicants situation

a) The strong increase of the applicant's numbers for the General Prison Service which had started in 1993 did not continue. First the number of applicants decreased significantly; since three years it has remained on the same level. The recruitment of a sufficient number of new staff which unconditionally is apt, however, further is guaranteed. Evaluating the quality of the applicant for this career a severe standard is applied. Therefore on account of the examination in Bavaria carried out already for a long time by a psychologist's team and a practitioner's commission the best suitable applicants for this difficult task are selected.

b)  The situation of the engagement of applicants for the middle-level administration service and the elevated prison and administration service remains problematic furthermore. Inspite of high numbers of participants in the selection process there are only relatively few applicants who are interested in an occupation in the prison service.

14.4 Basic and further training

a) Basic training

In 1980 the Bavarian Prison Staff Training School was put into operation in Straubing. It offers boarding to 134 trainees. There the junior workers are trained in the careers of the general prison service, the workshop service and the middle-level administration service.

The training period lasts about 20 months for the general prison service and the workshop service and 2 years for the middle-level administration service.
Beginning with the course of 1994 a change in the succession of the training sections was introduced for the graduate professional training of the general prison service and the middle workshop service with the aim of a stronger meshing of practical and theoretical education.

The elevated administration service gets its theoretical training at the Bavarian Employee's Professional School, department of administration of justice, field of prison service (Bayerische Beamtenfachhochschule, Fachbereich Rechtspflege, Fachrichtung Justizvollzug) in Starnberg. The practical training takes place in different prisons.

b) Further training

Approximately 2000 employees participate in about 180 to 200 further training arrangements in Bavaria and outside of Bavaria annually. In Bavaria averagely 120 further training measures with altogether 1800 to 1900 participants are run each year. Among them are basic and advanced courses for the general prison service, supervision arrangements for employees, special courses for the staff working in housing groups, training in discussion, executive duties, educational problems within the area of work, courses for employees of remand prisons, for employees in social therapy and for treatment, special courses für employees in juvenile prisons, in the treatment of drug addicted prisoners and for employees, who are active in the area of dangerous and problematic prisoners, courses in self-defence, sports-training and others. For employees of the workshop service technical courses are arranged.

Of substantial importance are also the individual courses - either on the basis of an order or of an approvement - which refer to vocational and educational measures within the framework of a specialized training or a continued training. Predominantly experts of the middle-level workshop service or employees who work otherwise in the factories as well as doctors and nursing staff are sent to this individual courses. Further training measures in the area of treatment and care for sexual offenders form a main point in this context. Moreover, in view of the rising amount of foreign prisoners the learning of foreign languages, particularly of Eastern European languages, is promoted.

The employees of the special services like psychologists, doctors, pastors, social workers, teachers and jurists are trained in respective seminars. Two times a year, the prison governors meet for official discussions with the head office.

In special areas there is a concept of basic and further training which is arranged for the special tasks of prison service (i.e. electronic data processing) or the necessary training is guaranteed by an exchange of employees with administrations of justice in other states (employees of the social-therapeutic institutions). The training measures offered by the Bavarian Employee's College, department for internal administration in Hof, since 1998 within the framework of the " qualification-offensive II " are particularly accepted by the employees.

Beside this there exists the obligation to train each employee in the prisons for 2 days (16 hours) in topics which are centrally prescribed by the head office.