Die Sicherungsverwahrung - de lege lata et de lege ferenda

The German Federal Constitutional Court put an end to the constant expansion of the rules for preventive detention on 04.05.2011 by declaring all legal provisions in this respect to be unconstitutional. The court justified its reasons for this ruling using decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights. It filled the term ‘Abstandsgebot’ (interval rule), which had already been introduced in its previous case law, with content and thus provided the basis for the new legal provisions. It also adopted the term ‘of unsound mind’, which had previously been introduced by Germany’s legislators. This dissertation contains a critical examination of the aforementioned court decision and asks, among other things, whether the narrow interpretation of the term ‘of unsound mind’ offered can be achieved at all. Using the example of Schleswig-Holstein, the author presents both the subsequent federal and state laws and, due to the lack of a valid prognosis, a proposal for reform.