Graz-Karlau Prison
The Graz-Karlau Prison is an Austrian penal institution . It is one of two prisons in the municipality of the city of Graz in Styria . With a capacity of 522 prison places, the prison is the third largest prison facility in Austria.
Conception
In general, as a penal institution, the prison can accept prisoners with terms of imprisonment of over 18 months in total. The Austrian penal system, however, provides for the execution of medium to long-term prison sentences for the prison. For example, male prisoners are housed in the approx. 67,500 m² large prison, popularly known simply as “Karlau”, who have to serve prison sentences ranging from over three years to life . Furthermore, in prison inmates since 1987 are the measures operation against sane, mentally abnormal offenders (2 § 21. StGB ) housed. Currently, 67 male detainees are being held in three measures departments.
As of September 1, 2008, 533 prisoners were incarcerated in the Graz-Karlau prison (456 of them were prisoners). This corresponded to an average occupancy rate of 102.11%. The prison was thus one of the most heavily used detention facilities in Austria. As of August 30, 2007 , the number of prison guards was 189 , which is the third largest number of guards in a prison.
Security facilities
In many areas, the Graz-Karlau Prison has more restrictive security standards than other Austrian detention facilities. This is due, on the one hand, to the aspect of long punishment with which the inmates in Graz-Karlau are usually confronted, and on the other hand to the particular danger that these inmates pose. The outwardly most visible security device of the prison is the approximately 1000 meter long, barbed wire reinforced and video-monitored outer wall. Inside the prison, security is ensured with the help of 128 surveillance cameras, motion detectors and an electronic surveillance system. The corridors of the prison, in which the prisoners can sometimes move freely during their free time, are separated by bars at regular intervals. In the individual cells in which the prisoners are housed, audio monitoring systems are partially installed, which prison guards can use to call the alarm. In addition, there are double-barred cells to accommodate particularly dangerous inmates.
Institution wall
Through variously designed artistic painting of the high boundary wall made of concrete elements between guide pillars, the institution has appeared aesthetically at least since 2008. While so far individual to many of the approximately 7 m wide fields had single images, on December 12, 2013 a continuous painting of the white colored north and west facade was opened, made up of only black dots. The Graz artist Viktor Kröll developed Opus Magnum 13 with both hands and was supported by helpers as well as inmates and the management of the institution. The 300 m long "probably the longest mural in Austria", according to the Institute for Art in Public Space, has a particular impact on the numerous people who pass through Triester Straße here.
history
Archduke Karl II had a hunting lodge built as a summer residence in the renaissance style in the Mur floodplains . The castle was first called "Castle Dobel", but renamed "Karl-Au" because of the similarity with the hunting lodge "Tobel" located in Tobel. In 1794, under Emperor Joseph II , it was used to house French prisoners of war . In 1803, Karlau Castle became a provincial prison for prisoners with sentences of up to 10 years in prison. In 1805 the city of Graz was occupied by the French. The felons kept in the citadel and casemates of the Schlossberg until then were transferred to the Karlau prison. In 1820 an annex was added to the castle in a westerly direction for the first time. A three-wing cell prison was built from 1869 to 1872. The three wings of the cell house converge in an axis cross, at the intersection of which there is a central tower. Towards the end of the Second World War , the facility was bombed twice, with 14 guards and 107 prisoners killed. In 1946 the British chief executioner Albert Pierrepoint instructed an Austrian executioner and two assistants in the execution by the " long fall " at the gallows in the prison in Karlau . Up until this point in time, executions in Austria had been carried out using the "short case", which often led to the agonizing death of the delinquents. After the briefing by Pierrepoint, the execution officers successfully applied to the Austrian Ministry of Justice to be allowed to carry out all executions using the "long case" in the future. This method was used for executions under British occupation law, while until the abolition of the death penalty in Austria on June 30, 1950, the death sentences of Austrian courts continued to be carried out by strangulation at the choke bar. On November 18, 1991, the first branch of the Austrian prison guard school was set up in the penal institution in Graz. On November 1, 1993, the former penal institution in Graz was renamed Graz-Karlau prison . It housed or is currently accommodating people such as the serial killer Jack Unterweger , the letter and pipe bomb bomber Franz Fuchs , the six-time murderer Udo Proksch , the alleged serial killer Wolfgang Ott or the Tawfik Ben Ahmed Chaovali who was involved in the terrorist attack at Vienna International Airport .
Special events
- On August 2, 1989, the robbery murderer Juan Carlos Bresofsky-Chmelir managed to escape from Karlau despite the strictest security precautions. After three burglaries in which he stole food for his escape, he stopped a passing vehicle, took the driver hostage and forced the woman to drive to Klagenfurt at the knife , where he first raped her six times and finally let her go. He was subsequently arrested again in Klagenfurt. Chmelir had come to Karlau because he managed to get to the roof of the prison church in the JA Garsten and to sit there for two days in order to point out the weaknesses of the penal system. After a stay in the Stein Prison , he was again in the Garsten Prison from 2004 to 2009 and was then again placed in the Graz-Karlau Prison on February 11, 2009. With over 30 years in prison, he is one of the longest prisoners in Austria.
- On November 5, 1993, the convicted sex murderer Karl Otto Haas was given a therapeutic release, despite a refusal by the court. On the same day he stabbed the 13-year-old son of his former partner and attacked a woman near Innsbruck who survived seriously injured. During the subsequent escape, he was shot by the police. The incident caused a sensation throughout Austria and had an impact on releases and conditional dismissals.
- On November 14, 1996, the prison was held hostage. Three women were taken hostage by three felons and two prison guards were seriously injured. The three criminals Adolf Schandl , Tawfik Ben Ahmed Chaovali and Peter Grossauer demanded a ransom and a helicopter. After almost nine hours, the Cobra task force freed the hostages and overwhelmed the perpetrators. After that, the security and detention conditions were tightened.
- The bomb bomber Franz Fuchs , who had been sentenced to life imprisonment , managed to hang himself in his solitary cell on February 26, 2000 with a razor cord despite his prosthetic arm . The exact circumstances of the suicide as well as the previously controversial single perpetrator theory led to numerous speculations and great media interest in the public.
- On February 28, 2001, a murderer and robber sentenced to life imprisonment applied for sexual contact with his wife. The matter went to the Justice Department . There the trained painter and house painter was told that he had no right to “continue the sexual community”.
- On July 1, 2004, the alleged serial killer Wolfgang Ott hid in a box that was secured with snap hinges and let inmates load him onto the institution's own truck that should have driven to the Lankowitz subcamp. The attempt to escape failed because of the attentive gate guard officers. They checked the car and box and took Ott out of his crate. It remained unclear whether his escape attempt was facilitated by the privileges granted to him. His attempt to escape led to the installation of a pulse rate monitor in the lock area.
- In January 2006, a 43-year-old Styrian who was serving his prison sentence in Karlau for fraud kidnapped his son and tried to flee towards Salzburg . A civil patrol finally discovered the man's car in a parking lot in Pongau . When the 43-year-old noticed the police, he raced at high speed against the wall of a rescue niche in the Schönberg tunnel in the dense holiday traffic and died together with his 15-month-old son. Just under a month later, a 34-year-old Styrian, who had to serve a prison sentence of several years for burglary, was convicted of having committed at least 22 break-ins between February 2005 and January 2006, causing damage of around € 150,000. Because of these two cases within a very short time, a tightening of the penal system was called for.
- In October 2006, an inmate had inmates wrapped in a package with plastic wrap and then loaded onto a truck and driven out of prison. In freedom he cut himself out of the package and the truck tarpaulin and fled. The 36-year-old would have had to serve a prison sentence of several years for numerous burglaries. He was arrested again just under a month later near the Graz Augarten. An investigation has been launched.
- In November 2010, a prisoner convicted of violent crimes did not return to the detention center and attacked a prostitute in Graz with a fixation knife and a cable , who was critically injured in the process. It was only after a week that the 48-year-old could be found and arrested in Lower Austria. He was also charged with robbery and murder of a pensioner about 30 km from the place of arrest, but this has not yet been proven. In the case of the injured prostitute, he has already made a confession.
- In March 2017, officials who used the shooting range in the JA Karlau closed it until further notice due to increased antimony levels in the blood. Antimony can get into the air as an alloy component of lead bullets.
- In June 2017, a convicted murderer killed a 34-year-old inmate, who was also convicted of murder, by being beaten with a table leg in the shared cell. Before that, there should have been an argument between the men.
organization
Branch office Maria Lankowitz
The Graz-Karlau Prison has a branch in Maria Lankowitz (40 km to the west) with a total of 52 places in residential groups for the implementation of the relaxed prison system . The aim of this implementation is to maintain the existing skills for coping with everyday life or to learn them. In the nursery nursery, seasonal vegetables are produced for personal use. One of the oldest biogas plants in Austria supplies Lankowitz with methane gas , with which a large part of the thermal energy needs of the branch is covered. Justice Minister Dieter Böhmdorfer planned to close some branch offices of the prisons in 2003, including Maria Lankowitz, but the plans were not implemented.
The outdoor house
In view of the relaxed penal system, the JA Graz-Karlau has an open-air house in front of the institution with a covering capacity for 20 inmates. There are residential units on a total of three floors; there are six single rooms, seven twin rooms and three large common rooms. All prisoners quartered in the prison house work for private companies outside the institution.
Forms of detention
470 inmates can be accommodated in the accommodation, which consists of 260 individual and communal cells. The types of execution range from the normal execution with security levels to the execution of measures on mentally abnormal lawbreakers, on prisoners who are not suitable for the general execution of sentences due to psychological peculiarities, the first execution, the relaxed execution of the sentence up to the release execution.
Education and job opportunities
The Graz-Karlau Prison runs its own vocational school with ten teachers. Inmates can be trained in nine professions. These are: car mechanics, metalworking technicians, carpenters, shoemakers, electricians, plumbers, cooks / restaurant specialists, bricklayers and painters / house painters. Around 85% of the prisoners have the opportunity to work in the institution's own establishments such as the institution's or civil servants' kitchen, bakery, construction company, library, IT company, bookbinding, electrical or automotive workshop, butcher's shop, gardening, art or installation company, painting, Locksmith's shop, shoemaker's shop, laundry or in one of the four business operations.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Inquiry response (PDF; 28 kB) from Federal Minister Dr. Claudia Bandion-Ortner on the topic of current prisoner numbers .
- ↑ Inquiry response (PDF; 38 kB) from Federal Minister Dr. Maria Berger on the subject of staff in Austrian prisons .
- ^ Information from Siemens about the installation of a new surveillance system in the Graz-Karlau prison.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Universalmuseum Joanneum> Art in Public Space: Viktor Kröll, Opus Magnum 13. Accessed March 18, 2015
- ↑ Marcus J. Oswald: Juan Carlos Bresofsky-Chmelir is exchanged for Adolf Schandl today. ( Memento from February 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Article in the online magazine “Blaulicht und Graulicht” from February 11, 2009.
- ↑ Explanation of the process of the hostage-taking under the item Successful operations in an article in the magazine “ Public Safety” (July / August 2003 edition).
- ↑ ORF report on the accident between the escaped prisoner and his son.
- ^ ORF report on the prisoner's successful escape.
- ↑ Antimony: Grazer Karlau closes shooting range orf.at, March 27, 2017 accessed March 27, 2017.
- ^ Graz-Karlau: inmate killed with table leg. In: diePresse.com . June 21, 2017. Retrieved June 22, 2017 .
- ↑ Maria Lankowitz branch of the Karlau prison (4222 / AB). Query response by the Federal Minister of Justice Dr. Dieter Böhmdorfer on the written question (4252 / J) from the MPs Sophie Bauer, colleagues to the Federal Minister of Justice regarding the Maria Lankowitz branch of the Karlau prison. October 15, 2002, accessed December 23, 2011 .
- ↑ Inmates work for McDonald's and in construction. In: derStandard. November 25, 2005, accessed December 23, 2011 .
Web links
- Website of the Graz-Karlau Prison in the Justice Department.
- Entry on the Karlau in the Austria Forum (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon ).
Coordinates: 47 ° 3 ′ 15.5 ″ N , 15 ° 25 ′ 46.8 ″ E