NCJ Number
81279
Date Published
1980
Length
26 pages
Annotation
Crime prevention efforts of the West German State of Lower Saxony comprise wide-ranging improvements in the administration of justice, correctional alternatives, and social and educational programs.
Abstract
Personnel additions in justice administration are being made to cope with general caseload increase and special areas such as white-collar crime and alien processing. Planning is underway to facilitate caseflow and relieve courts of petty crime and dispute settlement. Inservice education seminars are held for judges and attorneys. Correctional reform is two pronged: increased use of open institutions, but heightened security in closed prisons. Rehabilitation measures aim at equalizing social deficits through therapy, training, and prerelease and postrelease programming. Attitude change on the part of correctional personnel and the general public is being encouraged. Special inmate programs include drug rehabilitation, vocational training in 16 specialized occupations, inmate facilities for mothers with children, and work release. A number of physical facilities are being modernized and others constructed anew. Evaluative research is being planned, especially for innovative, open programming. Postrelease assistance is aimed at preventing recidivism through provision of financial credit, employment services, and social work followup. Preventive efforts at the social level include financial support to nonworking mothers of young children and social adaptation courses for foreign residents. Cultural policies promote day care centers for children of working parents, after-school programs for children from deprived backgrounds, special courses in both German and the native language for foreign children, and tutoring at home for this group. In addition, special efforts are directed at promoting adoption and juvenile employment. Police-community relations are being strengthened through public relations and citizen crime prevention programs. One graph and 69 footnotes are supplied.