The term „resocialisation“, with all its nuances and weaknesses, is a core concept of modern criminology and criminal policy. This term is used to describe much of what the state and society do with (potential) offenders in order to encourage them to lead a future life without criminal offences, if possible. From a historical perspective, the fact that we no longer punish purely for the sake of revenge and deterrence can be seen as significant progress. Fritz Bauer („Die Rückkehr in die Freiheit: Probleme der Resozialisierung,“ in: Schuld und Sühne, ed. by Burghard Freudenfeld. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1960, pp. 139-149, here p. 148) put it in a nutshell: „Whoever wants to deter with criminal law, whoever wants to arouse fear and trembling, must demand fortress walls, dark cells, water and bread, chain rattling and the treadmill of pointless occupation. Of course, he will not see any of his fellow citizens with socially conformist behaviour leave the fortress, but broken people unfit to live, sometimes even dangerous beasts. The harshest punishments of the Middle Ages did not deter or improve behaviour.“ As early as 1960 (op. cit., p. 149), he therefore called for: „Resocialisation requires individual, targeted measures. Deprivation of liberty, which is awarded on a tax basis, will be too long in one case and too short in another. Imprisonment may be an unsuitable means of solving the social issue raised by a specific case. For the time being, the public and the applicable law want to kill two birds with one stone, they want to deter and retaliate and at the same time re-socialise. That is an impossibility. If you add plus and minus, you get zero.“
The work Resozialisierung , published by Nomos-Verlag, provides an excellent overview and insight into how far we have come almost sixty years later, what is currently understood by resocialisation, what measures, concepts and institutes exist, how far the idea of resocialisation has generally become established in Germany and where there is still potential for development.
Eight years after the 3rd edition, Heinz Cornel, Gabriele Kawamura-Reindl and Bernd-Rüdeger Sonnen present the fundamentally revised and expanded 4th edition of the Handbook of Resocialisation . The co-editor of the first three editions, Bernd Maelicke, has left the editorial team.
Other renowned academics have been recruited for the new edition, including Frieder Dünkel and Christine Graebsch (who deals with the increasingly relevant topic of resocialisation for non-German nationals, p. 433 ff.). The content of the work has also been expanded to include a number of focal points, such as the possible perspectives of resocialisation laws.
After clarifying basic terms, the handbook deals with the topics of resocialisation of juvenile and adolescent offenders and the resocialisation of adult offenders, differentiating in each case between outpatient services and measures (such as independent offender support, p. 227 ff.) and inpatient measures (such as the prison system, p. 310 ff., and preventive detention, p. 339 ff.). Special target groups and problem situations such as drug addicts in prison (p. 382 ff.) or mentally ill offenders (p. 400 ff.) are then addressed and some areas such as victim-offender mediation and restorative justice (p. 479 ff.) or victim support (p. 621 ff.) are dealt with in greater depth.
Insofar as Cornel (p. 31) states in his introduction to the term ‚resocialisation‘ that this should replace other purposes and just retribution as the aim of the penal system or the purpose of punishment, he is shaking the foundations of our criminal law: guilt and retribution. Cornel is thus following in the tradition of Fritz Bauer and is quite right to shake these cornerstones, as they prevent much that would be possible and necessary in the area of resocialisation. If, for example, as is currently the case, the question of whether and for how long someone is imprisoned as a punishment is determined almost solely by the extent of their guilt, which they have to serve by suffering the evil of „imprisonment“, then it is pure coincidence and an exception if what is understood by resocialisation is to succeed during this imprisonment. Ultimately, this is probably a lifelong process of socialisation (p. 31), i.e. a process that concerns the relationship between the individual (in the person of the offender, p. 48) and society (p. 34). In terms of content, the terms integration (p. 46 ff.) and rehabilitation (p. 48 ff.) would be more appropriate, but the term resocialisation has become widely used for integration efforts and rehabilitation efforts for offenders and their social environment (p. 48/49).
The handbook focuses on the aforementioned dilemma of resocialisation and imprisonment. Cornel’s statement (p. 49) that resocialisation cannot be limited to intentions and good will, but must rather be viewed from the perspective of results, is central and an urgent postulate for the future. „A resocialising penal system is not one that only carries the claim in its mission statement, but an institution that ultimately succeeds in resocialisation, reintegration and integration.“
It is now completely undisputed that the period of imprisonment must be designed in such a way that at least possible damage with regard to (re)socialisation is avoided or resocialising offers are made and measures taken. Whether and to what extent resocialisation in prison is possible at all is controversial, however, although the prevailing opinion is that prison is not the ideal place for the resocialisation of offenders (see Johannes Feest, Wolfgang Lesting, Michael Lindemann (eds.), Strafvollzugsgesetze – Kommentar . 7th ed., Cologne: Carl Heymanns, 2016, before Section 2 LandesR, para. 7). This makes transition management from prison to freedom all the more important. In the chapter „Organising transitions“ (p. 572 ff.), Pruin addresses this topic in a very clear manner.
Further developments in the field of resocialisation will be largely determined by the resocialisation laws, which are increasingly being discussed and will sooner or later be introduced in one form or another in all federal states, also in order to better structure and coordinate intervention and support measures. Cornel/Dünkel/Pruin/Sonnen/Weber deal with this topic (p. 613 ff.) and convincingly explain the main content as well as the necessity and usefulness of such laws.
To summarise, it remains to be said:
The Resocialisation Handbook is the standard work on the subject. It is ideal for gaining a general overview of the topic or individual subject areas, as well as for researching specific individual issues. The work fulfils high academic standards and is very easy to read and understand. It is warmly recommended to practitioners as well as students and teachers. They live the spirit of resocialisation and the idea that Irmtrud Wojak emphasises in her biography of Fritz Bauer (2016, p. 8): „What reasonable reason, what religion or morality could ask us to remember human destructiveness and not the positive forces?“ (Irmtrud Wojak, Fritz Bauer 1903-1968: Eine Biographie . New edition, Munich: BUXUS EDITION, 2016).
The work thus makes an indispensable contribution to the reformation of an outdated criminal law of guilt, as Fritz Bauer („Die Schuld im Strafrecht,“ in: Kriminalistik: Zeitschrift für die gesamte kriminalistische Wissenschaft und Praxis Jg. 16 (1962), H. 7, pp. 289-292, here p. 292) also called for: „Great ideas, such as the principle of ‚guilt‘, tend to shatter when they are transferred to reality. Criminal law must take the opposite path, it must advance from reality (…) to the idea. It may be called care. Care for society and all its members in their earthly distress and need.“
Only with this idea can the helplessness of the state be overcome, as Cornel (p. 334) correctly diagnoses: „The imprisonment of people is difficult to legitimise in a democratic society committed to the rights of freedom and should be understood more as a sign of the state’s helplessness than as a sign of its sovereignty and power, which it undoubtedly is from a socio-analytical perspective.“