Prison Without Punishment Germany Allows Inmates to Wear Their Own Clothes, Cook Their Own Meals, and Have Romantic Visits: Could that Work in the United States?

• In Event: Roundtable: Punishment in America--How Cruel and How Unusual?

Abstract

Pictures of European prisons can be shocking, at least here in the United States. Fed a steady diet of the Shawshank Redemption and Orange is the New Black, American readers know their own prisons are bleak places. So these images—of well-stocked kitchens, pottery studios, and cells that look like college dorm rooms—are a reminder of how starkly different correctional systems can be. The Vera Institute of Justice, works with government agencies to improve courts, prisons, and other criminal justice institutions and has been trying for the last few years to show Americans that the two continents may not be as wildly incompatible as such headlines might suggest. In June 2015, Vera and the John Jay College took a group of prison officials, prosecutors, researchers, and activists from the U.S. to tour German prisons. This International Sentencing and Corrections Exchange included the heads of the prison systems for New Mexico, Washington, Tennessee, and Connecticut, several district attorneys, and Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy. Over the next several days, the Marshall Project and VICE, documented the visit, hearing presentations on how Germany handles sentencing, drug addiction, officer training, juveniles, high-risk prisoners, and probation.

Author

• Maurice Chammah, The Marshall Project