For release on June 10, 2015 CONTACT:
Sean Webby
Public Communications Officer
(408) 792-2997 DA ROSEN TO STUDY GERMAN PRISONS Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, along with a group of other public safety officials and policy experts from all over the United States, is spending the next week traveling in Germany to study that country’s correctional system.
The June 14-20 trip, sponsored and funded by the Vera Institute of Justice and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is intended to facilitate a comparative study between the prison systems in the U.S. and that of Germany, which has a tenth of this country’s incarceration rate.
“We have a high incarceration rate and a high rate of recidivism,” the District Attorney said. “Something is not working. It is my responsibility to look to other systems – whether they be in another county, another state, or another country - to see if there are better, more cost-efficient ways to make sure the public is safe.”
The trip will include tours of five prisons in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as well meetings with criminal justice practitioners and inmates. Germany makes much wider use of non-custodial penalties – such as fines, restitution and community service. Its prisons are focused largely on rehabilitation, re-socialization, and re-entry into society.
DA Rosen is attending the tour with the district attorney for Milwaukee, a top official with the largest prison ministry in the world, the director of a major conservative criminal justice reform think tank, and the governor of Connecticut, among others.
Following the tour, selected delegates will brief members of Congress on their insights into the German prison policies. # # #
Sean Webby
Public Communications Officer
(408) 792-2997 DA ROSEN TO STUDY GERMAN PRISONS Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, along with a group of other public safety officials and policy experts from all over the United States, is spending the next week traveling in Germany to study that country’s correctional system.
The June 14-20 trip, sponsored and funded by the Vera Institute of Justice and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is intended to facilitate a comparative study between the prison systems in the U.S. and that of Germany, which has a tenth of this country’s incarceration rate.
“We have a high incarceration rate and a high rate of recidivism,” the District Attorney said. “Something is not working. It is my responsibility to look to other systems – whether they be in another county, another state, or another country - to see if there are better, more cost-efficient ways to make sure the public is safe.”
The trip will include tours of five prisons in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as well meetings with criminal justice practitioners and inmates. Germany makes much wider use of non-custodial penalties – such as fines, restitution and community service. Its prisons are focused largely on rehabilitation, re-socialization, and re-entry into society.
DA Rosen is attending the tour with the district attorney for Milwaukee, a top official with the largest prison ministry in the world, the director of a major conservative criminal justice reform think tank, and the governor of Connecticut, among others.
Following the tour, selected delegates will brief members of Congress on their insights into the German prison policies. # # #