Butzbach correctional facility

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Butzbach correctional facility
Information about the institution
Surname Butzbach correctional facility
Reference year 1894
Detention places 762

The correctional facility Butzbach ( JVA Butzbach ) is a correctional facility of the state of Hesse in the city of Butzbach .

Adult male offenders are housed in the highest security prison. Among other things, there are criminals with a significant number of criminal offenses, who are willing to break out, who have been drug addicts for many years and who have behavioral problems.

history

In the middle of 1890 the construction work for the erection of the former penitentiary began. Four years later, the main building, the farm building, the hospital, the gate building and the protective wall, the director's house, two civil servants' houses (each with two apartments) and four supervisor houses (each with four apartments) were completed. The inauguration of the institution took place on July 2, 1894. In the following days, 149 prison inmates and 148 prison inmates from other prisons or penitentiaries in the Grand Duchy of Hesse were transferred to the new institution. As a result of the reconstruction and expansion of the prison, the capacity increased to up to 762 prisoners.

During the National Socialist era , political opponents, social democrats and communists, but also clergymen, were imprisoned in Butzbach prison. The prisoners had to work for the Butzbach shoe factory and the Offenbach armaments factory of Maschinenfabrik Heyne GmbH . The interrogations of the political prisoners took place in the so-called bunker of the prison, with severe abuse. Some of the detainees died as a result of mistreatment, poor care or were murdered. Seven people had been guillotined to death by 1937 . The guillotine was then taken to Preungesheim prison. In April 1945, the 1200 prisoners who were interned in the Butzbach at that time were freed by American troops. Hugo Salzmann was among them .

Sports and leisure activities

In the prison there is now a former warehouse that has been converted into a gym , where, among other things, badminton and table tennis are played. The dimensions of the hall are 32 × 14 m. In a gym (18 × 15 m) table tennis and badminton, but also gymnastics and exercise bikes are practiced. This room is also used for non-sporting communal events. In the Sporthof there are two small fields, each 40 × 20 m (handball playing surface ), on which football , handball , volleyball or basketball can be played.

Since 1981 there has been an art project in the prison system in cooperation with the University of Giessen . An average of ten prisoners per course can do painting, drawing, wood and linocut, color etching, ceramics, stone and wood carving, figurative sculpture, installation, photography, video and theater. Since 1994 there has been a music group ( Seductive ) in the prison .

further education

In addition to various school-based further training measures such as German, English, Italian, Spanish courses and a main school sponsorship course, the JVA offers further professional training measures . This includes a certified computer course ( Xpert European Computer Pass ), typing, training in metalworking with a journeyman's certificate from the Chamber of Crafts , a welding course with a DVS welding pass (E-Hand, WIG and MAG ), training to become a forklift driver with a floor conveyor license and a carpenter - or butcher - Apprenticeship with journeyman's certificate from the Chamber of Crafts. Before a prisoner is released, there is a release training seminar as a social training measure.

Own operations

There is an obligation to work in the prison . In the prison's six factories, prisoners manufacture parts for the automotive industry. They receive pocket money of 200 euros per month for their work. Apart from unemployment insurance taken over by the state, no social security contributions are paid for the prisoners by the employer or private sector clients ( pension insurance, etc.).

On December 1, 2015, inmates of the Butzbach prison went on a hunger strike, announced the prisoners' union / nationwide organization . 130 of the 500 or so detainees had signed a petition in which they demanded, among other things, the "full freedom of trade unions behind bars" covered by the Basic Law, the payment of the minimum wage for their work in the institution's own workshops and admission to the pension scheme. Several petitions to the Hessian Minister of Justice Eva Kühne-Hörmann (CDU) remained unanswered; Among other things, they asked the minister to assess the situation in the prison and threatened otherwise to go on a hunger strike at the beginning of December. It was not known how many prisoners refused to eat. Some inmates also went on “go on a slow strike” by performing work instructions very slowly. The prisoners also resorted to hunger strike because refusal to work is severely sanctioned in the prison and because refusal to eat for medical reasons could not force them to work.

literature

Web links

Commons : Butzbach correctional facility  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.jva-butzbach.justiz.hessen.de: Social task. , accessed October 19, 2008
  2. ↑ www.jva-butzbach.justiz.hessen.de: Social task. , accessed October 19, 2008
  3. ↑ www.jva-butzbach.justiz.hessen.de: History. Accessed October 19, 2008
  4. ^ Butzbach, prison / penitentiary. Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. (As of February 14, 2011). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  5. ↑ www.jva-butzbach.justiz.hessen.de: Sports department viewed on October 19, 2008
  6. ↑ www.jva-butzbach.justiz.hessen.de: music group viewed on October 19, 2008
  7. ^ JVA Butzbach: Prisoners on hunger strike. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . Archived from the original on December 2, 2015 ; accessed on May 21, 2019 .


Coordinates: 50 ° 26 ′ 13.9 ″  N , 8 ° 39 ′ 38.4 ″  E