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In this country, you can die four times while waiting for detox: The pandemic, drug use and chronicity of crises in Poland

By Justyna Struzik

The CrimScapes project[i], in which I explore the experiences of opioid users in the context of drug possession criminalization in Poland, began at the peak of the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). The regulations enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic not only shaped and constrained the context in which ethnographic research was conducted, but they also influenced the topics of my interviews with people who use drugs. Interviewees invariably referred to their experiences during the pandemic.

The pandemic, according to my interviewees, was not always unambiguously negative. Accustomed to the persistence of difficulties resulting from, among other things, the criminalization of drug use and perceiving themselves as a relatively “invisible” group to the Polish public discourse[ii], they did not anticipate the additional difficulties posed by the pandemic nor the specialized care provided in response to it. The chronicity of crises this group has experienced over the years has, in some ways, bolstered their resilience, or perhaps “indifference,” to the changes, crises, and difficulties that have occurred. Police violence, a lack of access to high-quality, non-stigmatizing health care, and the paucity of harm reduction programs, along with the dominance of abstinence-only programs, have shaped and continue to shape the social landscape of drug use in Poland.

However, some of the narratives I have gathered emphasize the repercussions of the pandemic (and imposed restrictions) on drug users’ lives and experiences, particularly regarding access to health care, the availability of treatment, and social support. Following Jarrett Zigon (2018), who encourages us to deconstruct the ‘fantasy world’ of the drug war locally in order to demonstrate how specific components of this world translate into the lives of drug users, in this blog post, I want to look at the experiences of people who use opioids in Poland during a specific period – the pandemic. I do so, among other reasons, because there are so many voices in public debates about the adverse effects of the pandemic and its restrictions, but this group’s experiences remain primarily unrepresented. Notably, I do not consider this blog post to be exhaustive in its coverage of the complexity of drug users’ experiences during the pandemic. Rather, utilizing two narratives gathered during the course of my research, I wish to highlight specific inequalities in access to certain public services that were a part of my interviewees’ experiences. I want to exemplify how the individuals I interviewed navigate and frame these inequalities, either by emphasizing the catastrophic impact of the pandemic on their own lives or by highlighting the chronicity of crises and the continuity of the decades-long drug war.

Klara’s story

At the end of March 2022, I met 35-year-old Klara in Warsaw. Klara was in an intimate relationship with another heroin user at the start of the pandemic; they lived together. They both tried several times throughout their relationship to break the cycle of heroin use they had been in for a while and return to substitution treatment. Because of the risk of experiencing withdrawal symptoms a few hours after taking heroin, Klara mainly worked remotely from her home at the time. She also desired to devote more time to her ailing dog. Her partner worked for a transportation company and was frequently absent from the home.

“The main thing I remember from that period is that I felt quite alone. In the sense that I just spent a lot of time alone. Because also the social life died down a bit. And with my parents, we didn’t see each other […]. It was this sense of increasing isolation. And it was very [acute]. And it wasn’t conducive to handling our life, especially because we were already in the throes of using. “

To maintain financial stability, Klara kept a close eye on the amount of heroin they both were using. She describes her experiences during this time as “acutely repetitive.”

“It was kind of a black hole in general. In the sense that there was just nothing happening, especially nothing good for a long enough time. I wondered how the pandemic would affect the availability [of drugs], because there were actually some voices saying …’ and maybe there won’t be drugs available on the market…’. But the availability hasn’t changed a bit, at least in Warsaw.”

The repetitiveness mentioned by Klara was also, in her opinion, something that kept them from quitting heroin and returning to substitution. Moreover, their relationship was becoming increasingly difficult, and violence began to emerge. During a holiday they spent together in the summer of the first year of the pandemic, they decided that they would both go to addiction treatment centers. Her partner decided to go into detox. He returned to Warsaw intending to seek further treatment for his addiction. However, new admissions were halted at the time due to the pandemic; the center’s staff advised him to wait and call every week to see if anything had changed. As a result, they were both in limbo for a while. Klara, on the other hand, was supposed to go to another center, but the number of beds available for women who use drugs was reduced due to the pandemic. The facility gave her the option of arriving the next day or waiting three months for a spot to become available. Due to the need for detoxification, the first option was not feasible. Klara, therefore, waited for the center for a few more months, which was especially challenging as it involved obtaining a new referral for treatment at the center from a doctor. During this time, her partner chose another center where new patients were being admitted. He first went to detox at a place that, ironically, she described as ‘not cool’ when she recalled the conditions there. When he returned, his admission date was again postponed by a few days. Eventually, Klara managed to drive him to the treatment center before going for treatment herself.

“I waited for detox for 3 weeks+. This is one of the wonderful features of the Polish healthcare system. In this country, you can die four times waiting for detox. The only opioid detox in Warsaw at the moment is the Nowowiejski center, where there were plenty of empty beds when I was there, but it doesn’t pay them [financially – author’s note] to have patients. In any case, when I finally got there, of course not without adventures, I was surprised that I got there at all, that it worked out after all, and I had this brief feeling that something had worked out and that [my boyfriend] was in the center and that I had survived. I was in a very bad physical state. And also, mentally, it was bad, but also physically. I had 45 abscesses, and in general, I was all swollen, at least on my legs. Throughout the detox, no one managed to take my blood, unfortunately. “

Her partner left the center where he was staying after a few days. Then, while waiting for the next one, he overdosed and died in Warsaw while Klara was still in the center. She was unable to attend the funeral due to pandemic restrictions.

“We were both aware that it would end up that way eventually, that it would be like one of us would eventually go down, and the fact that it happened to be him, I think it’s more of a coincidence; it probably didn’t have to be that way.”

Klara’s narrative is grounded on the category of waiting and her constant navigation of Poland’s complex treatment system. Their struggle to get into the center, to survive, was dependent not only on their own agency (e.g., trying to get into detox, planning a leave of absence from work for treatment, saving money for a more difficult time) but also on a volatile and unpredictable system in which the rules for accepting new patients were frequently changed.

The social landscape depicted in the interview demonstrates how drug users, specifically opioid users, are positioned as “less-than-human Others” (Zigon 2018, 59) – as someone who is constructed as an “incomplete subject,” as an addict who deserves less assistance and support than full citizens. This conception of drug users is sharpened to some extent by the pandemic, which makes some lives worth saving while condemning others to death (Agamben 2017[1], Caduff 2020).

Ryszard’s story

I met Ryszard in June 2022 in Warsaw. He’s 42 years old and has been undergoing substitution therapy since 2006. During his first ten years on the program, he used a variety of other psychoactive substances (amphetamine, clonazepam, and mephedrone). Currently, he only consumes alcohol, which he tries to limit as much as possible. Due to the fact that he faced incarceration for drug possession, he decided to enroll in a substitution program. As he had already had a negative experience with abstinence-only programs, he started taking methadone to avoid prison. He has had non-healing wounds on his leg for the past sixteen years. Due to his Hepatitis C and HIV co-infection, he is automatically referred to a hospital for infectious diseases, where no effective treatment to heal these wounds has been undertaken to date.

“As I have had these wounds for 16 years, I have not been to any other hospital for 16 years. They [infectious disease hospital’s staff – author’s note] treat poorly other than your main infectious disease issues. In other hospitals they didn’t want to treat me at all. For example, these wounds they didn’t want to treat at all. […] In the Prague hospital I was with this leg and fuck, and they told me to fuck off to this infectious hospital. I lay there for two days, I went on Friday afternoon, and on Monday a head doctor came and [says to me]: ‘fuck off to the infectious hospital’.”

Ryszard currently resides with his partner, who is also enrolled in a methadone substitution program and awaiting surgery for a fractured spine. According to Ryszard, the impact of the pandemic on their lives has been minimal. He temporarily stopped taking antiretroviral treatment for HIV, but he does not directly attribute this to the pandemic. Rather, he attributes it to a sense of alienation and stigma in the infectious disease clinic and the medical staff’s lack of concern for people who inject drugs.

“But they [the doctors – author’s note] do, they really approach us like…I tell the doctor that here I am starting to have some pain with these legs. And he says: ‘Ah, these legs, well yes. ‘ And he prescribes me cream as standard; I even already know I’m not going to heal it that way. I tell him I have vein problems because I do, and they’re huge. The nurses couldn’t take my blood, but I found a deep vein in my hand and took blood myself. I’m like, ‘doctor, we did it!’ And he says to me, with such a snarky tone, ‘how can you still get your blood drawn, what kind of drug addict are you?’. And as I’m thinking: ‘retard, I told you, I haven’t been taking that many years’. Fucked up, right?”

From Ryszard’s perspective, the substitution program has not changed significantly during the pandemic. He relied on taxis for the majority of his and his girlfriend’s two-week advance methadone dosage due to his leg wounds. His narrative, similar to Klara’s, demonstrates the ways in which people who use opioids are systemically constructed as disposable subjects (Wang, 2018) – as a group that the system, including the health care system, willingly pushes beyond what it is intended to address. Patients living with HIV and other infectious diseases or opioid users become invisible, unnecessary, and unprotected by the system, particularly in a criminalized context or during a ‘state of exception’ (Agamben 2005). Looking at the experiences of drug users, on the other hand, gives the impression that the pandemic is merely another crisis – part of a complex, multi-layered social world in which the criminalization of drug use and the emphasis on abstinence-only approaches translate not only into continued stigma, but also into poor housing and the threat of homelessness, difficulties in finding work, a lack of access to health and social care, and social isolation. When viewed through the lens of these experiences, the pandemic appears to be less of a unique process bringing social chaos and fear and more of a component of chronic crises, felt most by vulnerable groups.

Agamben Giorgio. (2005). State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Agamben Giorgio. (2017). The Omnibus Homo Sacer. Stanford California: Stanford University Press.

Caduff, Carlo. (2020). What Went Wrong: Corona and the World after the Full Stop. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 34(4), pp. 467-487.

Wang, Jackie. (2018). Carceral Capitalism. South Pasadena (CA): Semiotext(e).

Zigon, Jarrett. (2018). A War on People: Drug User Politics and a New Ethics of Community. Oakland: University of California Press.

[i] I would like to warmly thank all the people who agreed to talk to me and share their stories. I would like to thank Kasia Urbaniak for discussing a possible theoretical framework for the stories described in the post and Bardh Lipa for helping me express myself better in English.

[ii] For more on the invisibility of opioid users in the Polish context, see the interview with Magdalena Bartnik, ‘Niewidoczne populacje [Invisible populations]’ in the book ‘HIVstorie. Żywe polityki HIV/AIDS w Polsce [HIV-stories. Living HIV/AIDS Politics in Poland]’, edited by Justyna Struzik and Agata Dziuban, published by the NOMOS publishing house in 2022.

The persistence of HIV criminalization in Finland: an interview with two experts.

Interview and text by Juulia Kela.

The use of Finnish criminal law to prosecute the transmission, exposure, or non-disclosure (not telling sexual partners about your positive HIV status) of HIV is an ongoing, understudied field of criminalization. Along with Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Finland is one of the six countries with the highest rates of prosecution per capita of people living with HIV (GNP+, 2010). To complicate matters, Finnish criminal cases about HIV transmission, exposure, or non-disclosure are held in secret – and as co-operative body of Nordic organizations for people living with HIV, HIV-Nordic stated in 2014:

Neither has anyone counted all HIV [legal] cases in Finland. It is estimated that there has been a total of 15-20 cases. The Supreme Court of Finland has ruled in a total of five cases since 1993.

Since this publication, there have been four more cases ruled by the Supreme Court: two in 2015, one in 2017 and one in 2021. These cases represent a variety of details, including whether or not the virus was transmitted. However, what these cases share is the stigmatizing effect they have. As director of NGO Positiiviset ry Sini Pasanen puts it:

It has definitely been one of the most stigmatizing matters, for sure the one that causes the most uncertainty. Many people living with HIV have said that they have feelings like they are some kind of criminal. The removal of that label is still being waited for.
Of course, the label of criminal is not what the case really is, but rather, it lives in people’s perceptions: people don’t know how they can have sex, whether it’s enough that you’ve told someone – because who will prove whether you have or haven’t? It has really been the greatest burden, this question of criminality and the lack of certainty over the matter that has bothered people.
And the fact is that people living with HIV are regular people who haven’t been in contact with criminal law before, and then, all of a sudden, they’re told that if they have sex they can be charged under criminal law.

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled over two cases in which the criminal liability of the accused was brought into question. In both cases, the accused had had unprotected sex without disclosing their HIV status. In both cases, the accused was taking HIV medication and did not transmit the virus. Only one of these decisions was overturned, leaving many ambiguities over the status of HIV criminalization in Finland.

On September 15^th 2021, the Finnish Supreme Court overturned a conviction of aggravated assault for an HIV positive individual who had not disclosed their status to their partner. The accused was on medication – and therefore could not transmit the virus to the partner. Does this mean that the ‘gap’ between the medical fact of un-transmissibility and the use of criminal law in ‘controlling’ HIV is closing? In order to find out about the significance of the decision and the state of HIV criminalizations in Finland, I spoke to two NGO experts in October 2021.

Sini Pasanen is the Executive Director of Positiiviset ry and has worked on HIV advocacy on Nordic and European levels.

Teppo Heikkinen is a specialist at NGO Hivpoint and works with men who have sex with men.

J: What significance does the new Supreme Court decision have regarding the criminalization of HIV in Finland?

Teppo: The interpretation of the Criminal Code is changing and of course we’re pleased with that – how if you have an undetectable viral load and have treatment and if you don’t disclose your status, then the consequences won’t be as they were before – you might not end up in jail.

Sini: The Supreme Court decision has been long-awaited – and it’s good that we’re finally getting some clarity on the matter because so far, it’s all been very unclear. There are a few factors in this case that are of interest to us – that the ejaculation was onto a sheet, that there was intercourse only once – but what about if there had been more than one time, or what if the situation was somehow different?
And then there’s still the question of an HIV positive individual who is not on medication – or has, for some reason – there are a few rare cases where the viral load does not drop to undetectable levels despite medication – we can’t let it be assumed that they are somehow criminal.
But still, this doesn’t stop anyone from going to make a report to the police. The fact is that the transmission and exposure of HIV is under criminal law – and how we interpret this law is not explicit in criminal law itself. This also means we don’t have a specific part of the law to change. So, to an extent, we’re still having to work with people’s images and perceptions.
But the Supreme Court decision is still very welcome and gives us at least some clarity. Still, I don’t personally think that the job here is done, and that we can all lay back now because everything is clear and there is no problem – this is not the situation.

J: And so, there are ambiguities left over – who has the say over these? Who can say what will happen?

Sini: Nobody! It has been a cat-and-mouse game where the judicial system demands that doctors tell patients who have received a positive status that they may end up getting charged for non-disclosure … and then when doctors tell patients that this is the case, the judiciary appeals back to the fact that look, doctors have told patients – so there must be a problem here.
It’s totally fair that doctors tell their patients that they may end up in court – but then the judiciary ends up interpreting that as doctors tell their patients this, the people who end up in court must be guilty.

J: What does the history of criminalizing HIV look like in Finland?

Sini: Everywhere in the world where the spreading of or exposing someone to HIV has been criminalized, the first person who has been charged has been an immigrant whose photo has ended up published in media.

J: And this is the case in Finland too, right?

Sini: In Finland as well, yes. The first several whose pictures have been published in media have been immigrants. And personally, I think it sets the thought of what’s being done here.

J: Criminal charges have fallen somewhat with the development of medication & knowledge about HIV transmissions – from attempted manslaughter in the earlier 2000s to assault now. How do you see the relationship between scientific knowledge about HIV transmission and the law?

Sini: Well, I think that Finland is very behind on this. I don’t understand how we can have a judicial system that doesn’t believe in scientific research. That’s neatly what this is about.
… the entire scientific community is behind the fact that HIV doesn’t spread if you’re on medication – and yet we haven’t seen this fact being taken into account in criminal cases in Finland.
And it’s very strange and problematic that we have closed trials in Finland. The trials around the transmission of and exposure to HIV are closed and secret. We don’t know what they talk about in there. It’s difficult to go and change anything when we don’t even know what they’ve been discussing.

Teppo: But at the same time, doctors have also given out fair statements during criminal cases – saying that HIV is not transmissible if the viral loads aren’t at measurable levels – so they’ve been in a central role, in a way, in pushing for change in this legal practice.

J: I’ve heard that in the 2000s the police were still tracking HIV cases in criminal cases and that NGOs have asked why the cops have been doing this and not health services?

Teppo: … and then to think that media images [of people accused of spreading the virus] were just circulating publicly, and the knowledge that the police are doing this … so it has definitely impacted those who have been living with HIV.
… and it must have been terrifying and worrying about what kinds of processes you might end up being caught in even if you had acted ‘responsibly’ and been protected.

Sini: This is still going on – and has been going on very recently – it has not been long at all since the police have last been doing this. Unfortunately, they’ve thought because of the law that this is the correct thing to do.

J: How can this be happening, how is this in the hands of the police and not healthcare workers?

Sini: Exactly .. good question. It’s criminal law that enables this. But no expert on this agrees that it should be the police who track these cases but healthcare workers. And we have cases where someone has told somebody that they have the virus, and this happened recently – and this partner went to the police and not even to take an HIV test first – but rather to the police to go and report them. Just last year.

J: What challenges lie ahead in NGO work related to HIV criminalizations, and what other images of criminality or realities are you tackling in your work?

Teppo: When I follow press announcements related to HIV, it’s regrettable how people living with HIV are still portrayed. On World Aids Day it’s a bit different and more appropriate, but otherwise, in Finnish and international news there’s still this negative image, one about the ‘dangerousness’ of people living with HIV.
Maybe around five years ago in Joensuu – someone had spat at a police officer, which is of course rude – but it was reported that the officer had immediately taken an HIV test. So, around five years ago it obviously still wasn’t clear to the police that spitting isn’t a way to contract the virus. So this knowledge, when it comes to groups other than healthcare professionals and HIV specialists … is still quite bad.

Sini: HIV infection and stigma related to HIV intersects with other marginal groups strongly – those who use drugs, those in sex work, sexual and gender minorities. Intersectional stigma comes about from this and is experienced – people are criminalized from several different angles – drug use is criminalized, and while sex work isn’t criminalized directly, there are traits present related to buying and selling sex that might prevent people from accessing help.

We can’t say that HIV is just a chronic illness – today, it’s more of a social illness than a chronic one defining people’s lives.

References:

HIV-Nordic (2014) Annual reports. http://hiv-norden.org/documents.html.

GNP+ (2010) The Global Criminalisation Scan Report 2010. https://www.hivpolicy.org/Library/HPP001825.pdf.

Crimline: Crime and Punishment of Women in Germany

by Friederike Faust

Why do women commit crime, and how should they be punished? This CrimLine reconstructs in excerpts how the social image of criminal women, corresponding criminological explanations as well as penal policies have changed in Germany.

Delinquency and norm violations by women have always been in particular need of explanation, as they diverge with conceptions of the female nature and role. Linked to the question of the causes and motives of female criminality is the question of the appropriate and effective punishment of women.

This CrimLine is intended to help understand how today’s women’s penal system is organized legally and politically. The CrimLine reveals the social morals and imaginaries about female crime that come to shape the contemporary treatment of incarcerated women. Spectacular criminal cases will be used to illustrate how women’s crimes are dealt with differently over the years and in accordance with changing social gender relations. These social debates also reflect the paradigm shifts in the criminological theorization of female delinquency. At the same time, criminology as an applied science influences national and international penal politics and legislation, and thus has sever impact on the everyday experiences of sentenced and imprisoned women.

Vom unverbesserlichen Gewohnheitsverbrecher zum gefährlichen Sexualstraftäter: Sicherungsverwahrung in Zeiten von Corona.

Von Hildegard Wahle und Friederike Faust

Im Jahr 2020 befanden sich in Deutschland 589 Personen in Sicherungsverwahrung, eine davon war eine Frau. Die Sicherungsverwahrung betrifft vor allem jene Personen, die schwere Gewalt- oder Sexualstraftaten begangen haben und bei denen auch nach Ende der Haftstrafe eine erhebliche Gefährlichkeit vermutet wird. Die Sicherungsverfahrung in Deutschland ist daher der rechtlichen Definition nach keine Strafe sondern eine Maßregel. Da sie sich an eine verbüßte Haftstrafe anschließt, dient sie nicht dem Schuldausgleich sondern der gesellschaftlichen Sicherheit und Prävention. Ihr Maß bemisst sich nicht, wie das der Strafe, an der Schuld des*r Täter*in sondern an seiner*ihrer Gefährlichkeit. Anders als die Haftstrafe kann sie auf unbegrenzte Zeit veranlasst werden. Regelmäßige Begutachtungen entscheiden dann über die Möglichkeit einer Entlassung.

Hildegard Wahle war lange Zeit für die AIDS-Hilfe Soest tätig. Dort beriet und begleitete sie inhaftierte Menschen in der nahegelegenen Justizvollzugsanstalt Werl. Seit ihrer Pensionierung begleitet und unterstützt sie ehrenamtlich einige Männer in der Sicherungsverwahrung. Hier erzählt sie aus dem Alltag in der Sicherungsverwahrung.

Seit mehr als fünf Jahren begleite ich nun in der JVA Werl zwei unterschiedliche Gruppen in der Sicherungsverwahrung (SV). Einmal im Monat, immer am frühen Abend, treffen wir ehrenamtlichen Betreuer*innen uns für circa zwei Stunden mit den Gruppen in der Anstaltskirche. Die Gruppen existieren schon viele Jahre und werden von Seelsorgern der JVA hauptamtlich begleitet. In der einen Gruppe reden wir über all jene Themen, die die Männer so umtreiben. Sehr persönliche Angelegenheiten werden jedoch vorrangig in Einzelgesprächen mit den Ehrenamtlichen erörtert. Die andere Gruppe beschäftigt sich mit Bibel- und Meditationstexten , wobei aber auch persönliche Anliegen der SVer immer Vorrang und Platz haben. Nun sind die Herren in der SV sehr betrübt, weil seit der Coronawelle im März 2020 alle Aktivitäten wie Gruppentreffen, Einzelbesuche usw. nicht mehr stattfinden dürfen. Das Wenige, was die Untergebrachten hatten, ist nun auch erst mal nicht möglich.

Neben der Begleitung der Gruppen habe ich auch zwei Herren in Einzelbetreuung. Kurzzeitig waren Einzelbesuche unter erschwerten Schutzmaßnahmen erlaubt. Doch inzwischen können sie auch nicht mehr stattfinden. Einer der Herren, der sowohl zur Gruppe kommt als auch von mir einmal monatlich besucht wird, hält telefonisch Kontakt zu mir. Er ruft mindestens einmal wöchentlich an. Grundsätzlich wäre es möglich, dass ich ihn anrufen kann, aber der Sicherungsverwahrte hat nicht nur die Kosten für ein Gespräch nach Außen, sondern auch für ein Gespräches von Außen nach Innen zu tragen. Und die Telefonkosten in Haft sind teuer: Die Kosten für eingehende Anrufe belaufen sich auf pauschal 15 € monatlich, die Kosten für die Einheit von der JVA nach draußen belaufen sich auf 0,04 €. Daher verzichtet er darauf angerufen zu werden.

Die Sicherungsverwahrung wurde 1933 mit dem Gesetz gegen gefährliche Gewohnheitsverbrecher entsprechend damaliger europaweiter strafrechtlicher Veränderungen und beeinflusst von der Strafrechtslehre Franz von Liszts eingeführt. Sie reagiert damit auf die damals virulente Figur des unverbesserlichen Gewohnheitsverbrechers, über die sich die Forderung und Praxis legitimiert, regelmäßig rückfällige Straftäter*innen dauerhaft und unter besonders harten Bedingungen unschädlich zu machen. Die Maßregel der Sicherungsverwahrung wurde schnell von den Nationalsozialist*innen missbraucht: Bereits 1934 wurde sie 3723 mal angewendet und zur Demonstration nationalsozialistischer Ordnungspolitik genutzt. Sie fand vor allem Anwendung bei wiederholter kleinerer und mittlerer Vermögenskriminalität. Auch wenn das Gewohnheitsverbrechergesetz nach 1945 unverändert fortbestand, so ging die Anordnung der Sicherungsverwahrung deutlich zurück und die Gerichte zeigten sich zurückhaltender, einen solch gravierenden Eingriff in die Freiheit anzuordnen. Schließlich wurden die gesetzlichen Voraussetzungen für die Sicherungsverwahrung sogar verschärft: So wurde Ende der 1960er Jahre entschieden, dass sie nur noch als Mittel zur Bekämpfung schwerster Kriminalität bei nicht besserungsfähigen Täter*innen verhängt werden dürfe; sie wurde zudem auf maximal zehn Jahre beschränkt. Bis 1996 sank die Zahl der Sicherungsverwahrten auf 172. Nun befanden sich hauptsächlich Sexual- und Gewalttäter*innen in Verwahrung.

Die JVA Werl ist die zweitgrößte Haftanstalt für Männer in NRW und die einzige Anstalt des Landes mit einer Sicherungsverwahrung. Für die insgesamt ca. 900 Strafgefangenen stehen drei Häuser mit 686 Einzelhafträumen, 50 Zwei-Mann-Hafträume und 36 Drei-Mann-Hafträume zur Verfügung. Die zusätzlichen 140 Sicherungsverwahrte leben nach Verbüßung ihrer Strafe in einem separaten Wohnheim in Einzelzimmern. Um dem vom Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte angemahnten Abstandsgebot zwischen Maßregel und Haft gerecht zu werden und den Unterschied zwischen Strafe und SV deutlich zu machen, wird von Zimmern gesprochen, nicht von Zellen. Die Zimmer der Einzelnen sind sehr gut ausgestattet. Sie verfügen über eine große Nasszelle und eine Pantryküche (Miniküche). So besteht auch die Möglichkeit des gemeinsamen Kochens. Zudem hat jede Abteilung auch eine Gemeinschaftsküche, die nach Absprache genutzt werden kann. Ebenso stehen Gefrierfächer zur Verfügung, um das beim Einkauf erworbene Gefriergut sachgerecht lagern zu können.

Die Zimmer der SVer sind alle mit einem Telefon ausgestattet. Anrufe aus der Anstalt müssen genehmigt werden. Ebenso müssen Personen, die angerufen werden, ihre Zustimmung geben. Gespräche, die von den Zimmern aus geführt werden, können abgehört werden. Kontakt über Briefe ist jederzeit möglich, weshalb ich auch hin und wieder schreibe. Die Herren freuen sich immer wieder über Post von Außen, die nicht vom Gericht, der Staatsanwaltschaft oder dem Anwalt kommt. Selber zu schreiben haben sie jedoch keine Lust.

Da tagsüber die Zimmertüren nicht verschlossen sind, können sich die Untergebrachten frei in ihrer Abteilung bewegen. Einige Herren kochen auch gemeinsam, hören Musik oder schauen sich DVDs an. Es besteht die Möglichkeit, sich Musik und Filme über entsprechende Versandhäuser zu besorgen. Damit ist zwar für etwas Kurzweil gesorgt, nichtsdestotrotz ist die Zeit für die SVer noch schwieriger und einsamer als vor Corona. Einige der Untergebrachten arbeiten in den JVA ansässigen Betrieben wie Holz- und Metallverarbeitung. Einer ist auch als Hausarbeiter tätig. Der Verdienst hierfür richtet sich nach den Tätigkeiten.

Während der Lockdowns fanden Freizeitangebot wie Sport und Gruppentreffen – auch Therapiegruppen – nicht statt. Eine Zeit lang waren auch die Betriebe geschlossen. Einzig die Bäckerei und Küche wurden betrieben. Mittlerweile ist auch das Arbeiten unter Einhaltung der sogenannten Corona-Regeln in den Betrieben wieder möglich.

In den 1990er Jahren wird die Sicherungsverwahrung von Politik und Gesellschaft wiederentdeckt. Die kriminalpolitischen Debatten werden fortan vom Thema Sicherheit und Prävention geprägt. Ein Anstieg in der Alltagskriminalität führt zu einer größeren Verunsicherung der Bevölkerung, die Angst vor eigener Viktimisierung steigt. Hohe Rückfallquoten unter Haftentlassenen lassen Zweifel am Resozialisierungsmodell des Strafvollzugs aufkommen. In den Massenmedien dramatisiert sich die Berichterstattung über Kriminalität und die Aufdeckung dramatischer Fälle von Kindesmissbrauch und -tötung schockieren die Öffentlichkeit. Politische Entscheidungsträger*innen geraten unter Handlungsdruck. Ihre Reaktionen zielen vorranging auf die Beruhigung des öffentlichen Unsicherheitsempfindens und orientieren sich weniger an der Lösung bzw. Reduzierung konkreter Gewaltphänomene. In diesem Sinne tritt 1998 das „Gesetz zur Bekämpfung von Sexualdelikten und anderen gefährlichen Straftaten“ in Kraft, das fortan die Unterbringung in der Sicherungsverwahrung im Anschluss an die Strafhaft erleichtert; die Höchstdauer von zehn Jahren wird rückwirkend aufgehoben.

Die SVer richten schon seit vielen Jahren Gemeinschaftsfeste wie Frühlings-, Sommer- oder Herbstfest aus, wobei immer auch gegrillt wird. Von einer einheimischen Fleischerei wird entsprechend Fleisch bezogen. Genaue Mengenangaben der Einzelnen werden per Sammelauftrag bestellt. Andere Lebensmittel und Getränke werden über den Anstaltslieferanten bezogen. Im jeweiligen Abteilungsflur werden die Tische themenbezogen eingedeckt. Ein besonderes Highlight ist die Adventsfeier. Zu diesen Festen werden neben Angehörigen auch wir Ehrenamtlichen sowie die zuständigen Betreuungsbeamten*innen und der Anstaltsleiter eingeladen. Wir Ehrenamtliche lernen bei dieser Gelegenheit die zuständigen Beamt*innen, die auch häufiger mal wechseln, kennen.

Wie vieles anderes mussten und müssen auch diese Feste und Veranstaltungen leider Corona bedingt ausfallen. Alle haben die AHA Regeln, also Abstand – Hygiene – Alltagsmaske, einzuhalten. Seit dem 24. Mai 2020 sind einige Fälle von Covid-Erkrankungen in der JVA aufgetreten. Alle Häftlinge und SVer mussten sich daher in ihren Zellen bzw. Zimmern aufhalten. Weder Umschluss noch gegenseitige Besuche waren erlaubt. Inzwischen wurde der größte Teil der Insassen geimpft und Besuche können unter Auflagen wieder stattfinden. Doch die Gruppentreffen bleiben jedoch weiterhin abgesagt.

Literatur

Drenkhahn, Kirstin & Christine Morgenstern 2012. Dabei soll es uns auf den Namen nicht ankommen – Der Streit um die Sicherungsverwahrung. Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 124(1), URL: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zstw-2012-0005/html

Laubenthal, Klaus 2007. Die Renaissance der Sicherungsverwahrung. In: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 116:3. URL: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zstw.116.3.703/html

Sex in Public: The Legal Regulation of Sex in Public in the Mirror of Time.

Anyone who practices sex in public in Germany today must expect criminal consequences. Section 183a of the German Penal Code regulates the local circumstances in which sexual acts may take place. It criminalizes people who intentionally or willfully annoy other people by having sex in public, and threatens them with a fine or imprisonment of up to one year. The paragraph primarily targets and regulates two forms of consensual sex: sex work and cruising.

Sex in public, however, has not always been regulated and punished in the same way. The regulation of sex in public is subject to multifaceted changes and thus also points to changing notions of decency and morality. It raises the questions: How can sexuality be articulated in the public sphere? Who feels disturbed by whom and what? What is considered a public nuisance? Where should who be protected from sexualized or gender-based assaults?

A brief look back into history shows that sexuality in public space was once negotiated along completely different lines. In ancient Athens in 800 B.C., sex was considered a transitive act, an action that was not reciprocal. In the excavation site of Pompeii, there are wall paintings that show evidence of permissive, sexual acts in bathhouses or brothels. It was not until the emergence of modern notions of intimacy and the bourgeois nuclear family that the structural separation of public and private spheres emerged. Sexuality and intimacy were assigned to the private, closed space and limited to it.

This separation is reflected today in §183a: certain public sexual practices are regulated and criminalized with reference to a mandate to protect. In the jurisprudence, reference is made to a so-called “objective third party” who is disturbed by the sexual practices. This “objective” or also “imagined third party” (Barnert 2018) functions as an argumentation figure, stands outside of the event and forms a bridge between abstract law and concrete life. In doing so, this figure of argumentation is supposed to help find a yardstick in the “flickering between facts and norm” (Kocher 2019: 408). Sociologists of law such as Eva Kocher (2019) have shown that the sense of shame and decency attributed to this figure is based on contemporary values and notions of citizenship, paternalism, and reason. By inscribing implicit bourgeois-modern notions of intimacy and sexuality, privacy and publicity into criminal law via the figure of the “objective third,” regulation operates beyond the mere framing of sexual practices (Berlant & Warner 1989: 553-557); it promotes the separation of private life from the public sphere of wage labor, politics, and public space.

Literature

Barnert, E. (2008): Der eingebildete Dritte: Eine Aurgumentationsfigur im Zivilrecht. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Bartz, D. (2002): Die Scham erobert den Ozean der Liebe. Mare, die Zeitschrift der Meere. https://www.mare.de/die-scham-erobert-den-ozean-der-liebe-content-2505.
Zuletzt abgerufen: 20.06.2021.

Berlant, L., & Warner, M. (1998): Sex in Public. Critical Inquiry, 24(2), 547-566.

Fagan, B. M. (1998): Clash of cultures. AltaMira Press, Lanham.

Halperin, D. M. (1989): Is There a History of Sexuality? History and Theory,
28(3), 257.

Fradella, H.F. & Sumner, J. M. (2016): Sex, Sexuality, Law, and
(In)justice. Routledge.

Roth, N. (2014): Freundschaft und Liebe. Codes der Intimität in der höfischen
Epik des Mittelalters. Frankfurt. https://d-nb.info/1149289295/34.
Zuletzt abgerufen: 20.06.2021.

Stumpp, B.E. (1998): Prostitution in der römischen Antike. Berlin

Vokery, C. (2010): Gassigehen mit Glücksgefühl. Spiegel Panorama Online. https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/freiluft-sex-in-england-gassigehen-mit-gluecksgefuehl-a-723214.html.
Zuletzt abgerufen: 20.06.2021.

Text and timeline were created in the context of the MA seminar “Crime, Criminalization, and Gender” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (summer semester 2021). We would like to thank Sabrina Bahlo, Tülin Fidan, Melina Madoures, Sabrina Mainz, JJ Maurer and Muriel Weinmann for their permission to publish the timeline on our blog. The group work was summarized by Carmen Grimm.