Gefängnisbesuchsprojekte in Deutschland

In several prisons in Germany, so-called “prison visit projects” or “juvenile awareness projects” are offered for at-risk youths or juvenile offenders. The visit to a prison and discussions with inmates are intended to show the consequences of (further) delinquency at first hand and to lead to changes in attitude and behaviour among the participants. However, a crime prevention effect of such programs has not been proven. In the context of US projects such as "Scared Straight!", which promised high success rates, but which could not be confirmed in the context of strong evaluations, the author presents the outcome of her empirical study on German projects. Due to many other effective crime prevention programs, she concludes that the implementation of these programs without any further evidence-based research is not advised.