After the juvenile prison Plötzensee now also the JVA in Moabit is to receive mobile phone blocker. Opinions differ. ROBERT KIESEL
Prison juvenile detention center Ploetzensee. © Mike WolffMore articles
The formulation in the coalition agreement of the Red-Red-Green Senate is clear: “The installation of the mobile blocker in the prison Moabit will be implemented in the previously planned budget,” it says in the chapter Prison and rehabilitation.
Indeed, the establishment of the system for the suppression of conversations with cell phone jammer at Moabit Prison, which has been running since 2012 in the juvenile detention center in Plötzensee, has been included in the draft budget for the dual budget 2020/2021. A total of 2.325 million euros to cost installation and maintenance of the plant to 2022. EUR 371 000 were already spent in 2018 for the preparation of the measure.
Differently, in turn, the views on what the blockers bring. In response to a parliamentary question by FDP MP Marcel Luthe, the Senate justice administration speaks of “mixed experiences” and states that beyond Moabit, there is no plan to have a facility in other detention centers.
The system will cost over two million euros
Speaking to the Tagesspiegel, a spokesman for Justice Senator Dirk Behrendt (Greens) adds: “In our view, the system is not a model for success.” Nevertheless, there is the “political will” to install the blocker in Moabit as well. You will not stand in your way.
Although the response of the judicial administration states that the incentive to own a mobile phone is being reduced “so that the detainees have no or only reduced procurement efforts”. At the same time, Judicial State Secretary Daniela Brückner states that the location of dropped devices was only successful in two cases.
In addition, this indicates a location range, “which covers several rooms and thus requires more extensive control measures.” In occasion-independent controls no other phones were found, which speaks in favor of the deterrent effect of blockers, said Brückner. How many of these controls she had, she did not tell.
Behrendt: “From our pont of view, the system is not a model for success.”
That is not enough for the FDP interior expert Luthe. “Economically absolutely unacceptable”, he calls the system and refers to the more than a million euros of expenses that have previously cost equipment and maintenance. In addition: In order to continue to effectively close off the remand detention area of the juvenile detention center Plötzensee from the net, investments become necessary.
A cost estimate for the increase in performance amounts to 357 000 euros. Money that Luthe said should be better invested in drug detection dogs or the psychological care of the detainees. He speaks of “a huge waste of money” and advertises to examine low-cost and mobile models. After all, the next investments are already foreseeable, says Luthe with a view to the introduction of the 5G licenses. Telephone calls and surfing the Internet via this technology can not prevent the blockers to the current state.
While the administration of justice also admits that the system is lagging behind in technical development, CDU interior expert Sven Rissmann said: Seven years after its introduction, the system had to be carefully evaluated. A report to be expected soon in the Legal Committee of the House of Representatives. It is logical that the system of the “question of effectiveness” set up under ex-Senator Thomas Heilmann (CDU) had to face up.
We can not quite understand the conflicting experiences,” said Norbert Cioma, chief of the union of the police. The administration of justice itself speaks of a high preventive nature of the blockers, the location of equipment is a nice side effect. With regard to the mobile phone ban for pre-trial detainees, he added: “It is the task of a justice senator to ensure that rules and prohibitions are punished in the institutions he is responsible for.”