Most prisons offer art and craft workshops, in poetry, pottery, painting, etc. Burg prison in Saxony-Anhalt offers a book club and creative art therapy.¹

Many prisons offer vocational courses. In Berlin, prisons organise classes to gain qualifications to become a fitter, locksmith, cook, joiner, carpenter, gardener, automotive mechatronics technician and bicycle mechanic.¹

Prisoners can receive visits from a minister of their faith ¹. Conversations between them are confidential.

Imams are mostly volunteers. As they lack in numbers in some states, they cannot assist all prisoners who make a request. Muslim chaplaincy is the subject of debate. Most states express willingness to offer one. However, there are no contracts with Muslim organisations. The provisions for religion in public law are based on Catholicism. German law is not adapted to the characteristics of Islam. ²

Each prison has a space in which it is possible to organise a collective religious service (mainly worship, but also Bible study groups). Some older prisons have a chapel. Places of worship (chapels or multi-cultural rooms) can, in any case, be for everyone’s use. Volunteer chaplains meet religious prisoners in a room reserved for visitors.

The named account is funded by four types of sources:

• funds given by relatives
• remuneration for work done in detention (3/7 of the salary)
• release earnings (4/7 of the salary). This account is not provided for in the prison laws of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western-Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony and Thuringia
• funds which the prisoner had prior to their arrest. While in prison, prisoners cannot manage the money they accumulated prior to their incarceration.

Discussions about the conditions of detention between prisoners and prison authorities take place within a pre-established legal framework: the principle of co-responsibility of prisoners (Gefangenenmitverantwortung, GMV). This framework entitles their elected representative to take part in the decision-making process concerning prison life. This representative conveys the concerns of their fellow inmates to the administration.

For more information on the principle of co-responsibility of prisoners, see Sarah Watts’ thesis, University of Münster (2013).

By court order and in exceptional circumstances, a prisoner can be deprived of the right to vote. Such deprivation may be pronounced in cases of treason or high treason against the Federal Republic of Germany.

Prisoners in an open facility may go to the polling station or cast a postal vote.

Those in closed facilities cast a postal vote. The prison administration guarantees vote confidentiality and the ballot papers are placed in sealed envelopes.