“Carries enormous risk” – implementation measures: unconditional discharge soon

Entry barriers have recently been raised due to the overload of enforcement measures. In the future, offenders with an intellectual disability could no longer be so easily instructed in the implementation of measures. With the new regulations, the minimum sentence must be three years and young people must have committed a crime punishable by a minimum of ten years in prison.

Dozens fired from September
That will bear fruit in September. Then those people from the forensic therapeutic centers will have to be fired who should not have been admitted under the new rules. It doesn’t matter how long ago the moment of the crime was and how long you were in prison. According to the Ministry of Justice, on September 1, nine and then about 50 people across Austria who were under the age of 21 at the time of their admission will be released.

The question now is what will happen to the people who will be released from the fall. “These people can be better cared for and cared for outside the enforcement of measures,” the Ministry of Justice said. Criminal law expert Katharina Beclin sees “major problems for us” because the layoffs are not subject to conditions. “Especially from the moment you stop taking your medication because no one is watching,” she said on ORF radio. Beclin fears that eventually no one will feel responsible for these people. “Here, the Ministry of Justice is responsible for throwing them out of a closed system overnight, where everything was taken from them,” the expert explains.

“How is that supposed to work?”
Those affected are not obliged to undergo treatment or to go to a residential care center after their release. Marco Uhl of the Center for Social Work, which takes care of freedmen in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, fears that many will be left on the street. “How is that supposed to work all of a sudden?” he wonders. Outpatient care is not enough for people who have been in prison for ten years. If their danger has been “reduced”, there is no reason to put these people in hospitals. “They will also have a hard time finding a place in assisted living facilities,” says Uhl.

The Ministry of Justice emphasizes that preparations for the redundancies have been made: “The responsible institutions have been informed, as an increased need for medical care from the hospitals is to be expected.” Kathrin Sevecke, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedUni Innsbruck contradicts the Ö1 interview: “We have not been warned yet, we have no information about what is to come.” She warns that young adults can drift back into environments where crimes are “normal.”

Rising recidivism rates feared
Social worker Uhl also fears that without appropriate aftercare, recidivism will increase – it is currently still very low. According to the Ministry of Justice, those affected are already being prepared for their imminent release with escorted exits. There are also offers for voluntary probation. “If everything is voluntary on the one hand by those affected and on the other hand, the social and health system must intervene, which did not have to happen before, a number of questions will arise,” says Marco Uhl skeptically.

SPÖ: “Enormous security risk”
SPÖ spokeswoman for justice Selma Yildirim called on Justice Minister Zadic to prepare well for the transition from implementing measures to the freedom of detainees: “Even when the federal government made the decision, we warned not to go halfway until when it comes to the implementation of measures. Apparently that is exactly what the Minister of Justice intends. This poses a huge safety risk to people who previously spent years in dense and structured care.” To check whether such concepts exist, she will ask a parliamentary question.

Yildirim called for negotiations with the countries that have jurisdiction over health care to enable meaningful supervised discharge. An “arbitrary dissolution” would pose a security risk to the redundancies and the population and jeopardize the acceptance of the reform of the enforcement of measures.