German Youth Prisons

By R. L BRAM ri* Little has been recorded of that section of the Legal Division of the Control Commission for Germany, the Penal Branch, respon- sible for the supervision of the German prison administration in the British Zone. Indeed, it would not thank you for publicity. But to spend a few hours in the headquarters at Herford with the Director and his staff, to meet the Senior Land Officers and their inspectors, is to feel oneself in the atmosphere of the pioneer, fired by a task to perform, accepting the challenge of every obstfuction and difficulty, and only anxious lest the time be too short to see the job through.

The critics (variously informed) of the present-day trend in English prison and Borstal administration, which attempts to stress training where possible as opposed to purely negative detention, and as a corollary seeks conditions in which training is feasible, misinterpret de-regimentation as softness. But even they woul not subscribe to some of the conditions in which the Germans were content that their young delinquents should serve their terms—weeks and weeks on remand in a Gerichtsgefangnis with no associations at all ; indeter- minate sentences served in the wing of an adult prison, with negligible attempts at any preparation for return to liberty ; a punishment system whereby for three weeks on end a boy may be shut in a base- ment cell, allowed neither to work nor to read, and with little more than bread-and-water diet, and with half an hour's solo exercise a day. Whatever wheat there might be amongst the chaff was being allowed to moulder and decay. The Penal Branch got busy.

The Juvenile Delinquent Centre for Land North Rhine-Westphalia at Staumuhle near Padeborn is about fifteen months old. The com- pletely open camp, with three or four permanent brick buildings (administration block, boys' houses, hospital), was at one time a civil internment camp. It is supplied with youths doing from three months to indeterminate sentences, selected for their reliability, from the boys' wing of Siegberg Prison and from Herford Youth Prison. Here is training in industry (there are adequate workshops), in education (rather thin but improving), in decision and self-control. There has been one escape in fifteen months, and the boy returned to give himself up. The youths I saw coming in from the shops and the fields looked tanned and healthy, disciplined but unrepressed, pur- poseful. Herr Direktor is a balanced enthusiast, believing in what he is doing, and grateful to the Penal Branch for creating the oppor- tunity to do it. He seemed to be served by a co-operative staff.

Vechta in Lower Saxony has an interesting boys' prison. As with The writer is a Prison Commissioner and Director of Borstals.

some of our young prisoners' centres in England, it is part of a large adult prison, but the 200 boys are well separated from the men, and have their own special staff. Out on the farm-market-garden is another building, with no security and with a touch of homeliness about it. Here fifty picked boys are promoted from the prison to finish their time. A good deal of trust is shown, and the boys do not abuse it. The staff seemed keener to train and guide them than to shoot them with the guns they carried ; and the deputy governor who was in charge of the boys' prison migh(be affectionately dubbed " wide " by the boys, but his enthusiasm for their personal progress was patently genuine. One could criticise details in the set-up, but always with the recognition that here was a real attempt to study the boys as individuals, to train and not merely to dump them, and to send them out of prison better than when they came in.

The girls' prison at Vechta is an old monastery, to which a wing has been added. It was. clear that the woman governor and her deputy regarded the girls as sent to them for careful study and personal reform. Doubtless discipline is keen and routine thorough, but the girls looked in the right way at the staff, and the governor spoke in the right way about the girls. The old monks' cells made not unpleasant bed-sitting rooms ; the association rooms and the chapel were good ; the sewing rooms adequate. Twenty-five strapping young Frdu/ein worked in the market-garden, tantalisingly separated from the boys at the far end. One felt about this interest- ing place that first things come first.

Eighteen months ago, in Land Schleswig-Holstein, there were 35o youngsters doing time and nothing much else in Neumiinster Prison. The Penal Branch saw the waste going on, and today upwards of a hundred picked boys train and grow in Moltsfelde Camp. The overcoming of problems—the procuring of huts and gear, the erection and opening of the camp—in such difficult times shows a miracle of determination. The German authorities, sceptical at first, are now converted, and an overworked but intensely keen and intelligent deputy-governor, in charge of the boys' side, sorts and classifies, promotes to the camp, organises the training and selects for discharge with a zest and an acumen which would do credit to an experienced Borstal governor. The camp is completely open, but nobody runs away. The huts are good and the lay-out excellent. Workshops, dormitories, education huts, association rooms—all are satisfactory. There is reasonable self-government. If the education itself is a little thin, and if the personal training needs carrying a stage forward, these are no criticisms of a piece of really fine pioneering work. As staff becomes available pro- gress will be made. Meanwhile, imprisoned but not really criminal youngsters are learning decision and responsibility in an ordered, disciplined community instead of atrophying in solitude in a prison cell.

Down in the battered Ruhr area there is a .most enterprising 7ugendlager at Mfilheim. A large steel works was short of labour, and Anrath Prison was sousing many__YgaltilS—.who,.with .a collialeint faith might be trusted to serve-tiietWientences in more realistic conditions. The Penal Branch linked the two problems and wore down objections ; and now on a piece of waste ground hard by the works, right in the middle of an industrial area, is an open camp for young prisoners. The living conditions are simple, almost stark—small huts partitioned into rooms for six or eight ; double- tier beds ; a common-room or two ; a swimming bath and a football pitch. The boys work at the factory, taking their place with the free men there, who treat them naturally. Indeed the camp is more like a works hostel than a prison camp. Leave is granted now and then for boys to go into the town, to the cinema, or to sec their parents. They return regularly to time. The Inspektor had worked in closed adult prisons for fifteen years, and confessed to an early scepticism which had now given place to genuine enthusiasm. 1-1e was proud of the boys' response, alive to the realism of the experi- ment, and gratified that twenty of his former charges are now free and accepted employees of the works. Here is young delinquent training in real Industrial conditions. With the co-operation of the trade unions, this very sensible idea might well be followed in England. When the Direktor of Siegburg Prison spoke of the days when

had to cope with 80o young prisoners in his youths' wing (accommo- dation 18o), the necessity for the Penal Branch to find an outlet could be appreciated. Though the number is now down to 25o, it would be 35o but for Gestingerheide Camp. A year ago the Penal Branch found twenty Nissen huts and got them erected out in the country. Placed alongside a lake, and (with rare faith) within a few

hundred yards of the North-South Autobahn, the camp forms a hollow square, with grass and flowers in the middle. As we stood

there, fit, bronzed young Germans—and not all by any means first offenders—came in from their work on the farms and went off for a dip in the lake. As is all these German camps, the cultural and educational side is rather limited. It is tackled, but inadequately ;

and the camp has not yet found the value of the volunteer worker and visitor. But personal work is being done ; the Leiter knows his

boys, and cares how they develop. The staff, carefully picked,

k keen. There is plenty of work on the farms. Return to Siegburg i, the sanction behind the discipline. The place is completely

open, and there is no security. Gestingerheide is more than a

good show ; it is a courageous venture, set up against odds we do f)ot know in England, and carrying on with a faith and deter-

mination which are bound to have their effect on the future. It is simple, unpretentious, non-luxurious. But there is training there, and hope.

Other places were visited ; Aussen Komandos, a court prison, the youth prison at Herford. As the car lapped the miles on the Auto- balms, as the C.C.G. train ran westwards through Holland, the question repeated itself : Has the Penal Branch had time to build foundations so deep that the faith that is in it may be perpetuated in works that will last ? Browning's answer is irresistible:

" All we have hoped, or willed, or dreamed of good shall exist ...

When Eternity affirms the conceptions of an hour."

The time, it is true, has been short, but the faith, I believe, will be justified. •