The Complexity of Decision-Making in the Prison System: Which Factors Influence Placement in Open Prisons?

Open prisons have been found to be helpful for the rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals in Germany, yet their use has declined in recent years. This article examines the criteria used to select prisoners for open prisons and the ways that decisions regarding transfer, continued placement, and return to closed facilities are made. A mixed-methods design was employed: Criteria for placement in an open prison were derived from qualitative interviews with 16 prison department heads. Subsequently, data regarding these criteria were collected from 871 prisoner files and submitted to statistical analyses. Using conditional inference forests, we identified key predictors associated with placement and continued stay in an open prison as opposed to being transferred back to a closed prison unit.The results show that offense type, mental illness, police escort into custody, and differences between institutions significantly influence placement decisions. Accordingly, decisions about open prison placement are primarily determined by characteristics that cannot be changed during incarceration. The results also highlight the predominance of security concerns in the decision-making process, even though empirical findings suggest that prisoners with complex problem constellations could particularly benefit from the opportunities provided by open prisons. Taken together, our findings suggest that decision-making processes should be standardized, evidence based, and risk differentiated to reduce personal and institutional variation and to make fuller use of the rehabilitative potential of open prisons.