Government wants shorter imprisonment for unpaid fines
Created: 12/21/2022, 2:38 p.m
View of the facade of a prison in Düsseldorf.
© Christophe Gateau/dpa
Should driving without a valid ticket remain a criminal offense or not?
The Federal Minister of Justice wants to deal with the answer in 2023.
Now the government has decided on some other changes in the sanctions law.
Berlin - Those who cannot or do not want to pay a fine should not have to spend as long in prison as before.
The Federal Cabinet passed a corresponding draft law this Wednesday.
It stipulates that one day of imprisonment should no longer correspond to one but two so-called daily rates.
The time behind bars would thus be halved.
The amount of the daily rate is based on the income of the accused.
This draft for the revision of the law on sanctions does not deal with the question of whether fare evasion should no longer be a criminal offense in the future, but only an administrative offence.
According to Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP), the possibility of such a reform should be examined in the coming year.
Social changes taken into account
The draft, which the Bundestag still has to approve, also stipulates that the list of reasons to be taken into account when determining the sentence should be expanded.
The corresponding paragraph of the Criminal Code, which already lists “racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic or other inhumane” motives, is to be supplemented with “gender-specific” and “against sexual orientation” motives.
For example, men who use violence against women because they believe they can determine the woman's life can expect higher penalties than before.
The adjustment should also apply to acts directed against people’s transgender or intergender identity.
The requirements for placement in an addiction treatment center are to be made more stringent.
The aim of the planned change here is to concentrate capacities on addicts who actually need treatment.
In order not to create false incentives for suspects to emphasize their own drug addiction for tactical reasons, the suspension of the remaining sentence on probation should also only be possible for offenders in such clinics after two thirds of the sentence, currently this is already possible half of the sentence .
"In recent years, the number of people who are housed in a rehabilitation center after a criminal conviction has increased drastically," said Buschmann.
Many clinics are overloaded.
In the internal vote, minor changes were made to the draft submitted by Buschmann.
Not only after five years, but after three years, it should now be looked at how the number of those who are serving an alternative prison sentence has developed in relation to the number of fines.
In addition, it should be looked at how the new conversion standard affects the accused's willingness to pay.
In the future, a purpose-specific transmission of personal data to private institutions that provide help to offenders is to be permitted.
Their social workers can then show convicts options "to pay off the fine in installments or to do community service in order to avert the enforcement of a substitute prison sentence".
The justice ministers of the federal states had pushed for this passage to be inserted.
DAV: More far-reaching reform desired
The German Lawyers' Association (DAV) would have wished for an even more far-reaching reform of the sanctions law.
He wants fare evasion to no longer be considered a criminal offence, but only an administrative offence.
Substitute imprisonment should be abolished “or at least be limited to those unwilling to pay”.
The German Association of Judges spoke out in favor of limiting the criminal offense of fraudulent promotion to a "criminal core".
"Driving on public transport without a ticket should only be punishable if those affected overcome access barriers or bypass access controls," said Federal Managing Director Sven Rebehn.
Anyone who gets on a bus or tram without committing any form of deception or circumventing technical protection against fare evasion should no longer be threatened with punishment.
In these cases, the civil law compensation claims of the transport company, such as the increased fare, are sufficient.
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First and foremost, the transport companies themselves are required to prevent fare evasion more effectively through effective technical access restrictions and more frequent controls.
Rebehn calculated: "If the criminal offense were restricted as proposed, the prisons would also be relieved as a result, because around a quarter of all alternative prison sentences are based on fare evasion." dpa
