THE GERMAN LABOUR HOUSES.
The early legislation of Germany relative to begging and vagrancy was
not greatly dissimilar in spirit from our own. Down to the sixteenth
century Germany was satisfied with the mere prohibition of these
practices. A Resolution of the Diet at Lindau in 1497 simply forbade
vagabondage, and ordered the authorities to exercise supervision over
beggars of all kinds. In 1532 Emperor Charles V., in Article 30 of his
Penal Court Ordinance, similarly enjoined the authorities to "exercise
vigilant oversight over beggars and vagrants," and in 1557 the Imperial
Police Ordinance sanctioned the issue of begging letters to poor people
for whose support local funds did not exist.
During the eighteenth century a series of decrees and regulations
were issued against begging in various German States, but without
suppressing it, and towards the end of the century the evil in many
parts of the country had reached proportions which threatened public
security.
"As late as the third quarter of the eighteenth century, and in
some parts of the country until its close, the most shameless
and wide-spread mendicity defied at once the severest official
prohibitions and the best meant endeavour of the communes and private
individuals."[59]
[Footnote 59: Biedermann, "Deutschland im 18 ten Jahrhundert," Vol. I.,
p. 401.]
Then it was that the idea of the disciplinary treatment of vagrants and
loafers in general took root, leading in time to the institution all
over the country of special houses of detention, not inaptly called
Labour Houses, for the reception of these offenders, of the work-shy of
every description, and of certain other classes of people who followed
a disorderly mode of life. When the Empire was established, the
practice of the various States was embodied in the Imperial Penal Code,
and Labour House treatment is now the recognised mode of correcting
sloth, loafing, and habitual intemperance and immorality throughout
Germany.
Sections 361 and 362 of the Penal Code define as follows the offences
which may entail detention in a Labour House:--
"(1) Whoever wanders about as a vagabond.
"(2) Whoever begs or causes children to beg or neglects to restrain
from begging such persons as are under his control and oversight and
belong to his household.
"(3) Whoever is so addicted to gambling, drunkenness, or idleness that
he falls into such a condition as to be compelled to seek public help
himself, or for those for whose maintenance he is responsible.
"(4) Any female who is placed under police control owing to
professional immorality when she acts contrary to the police
regulations issued in the interest of health, public order, and public
decency, or who, without being under such control, is guilty of
professional immorality.
"(5) Any person who, while in receipt of public relief, refuses out of
sloth to do such work suited to his strength as the authorities may
offer him.
"(6) Any person who, after losing his past lodging, fails to procure
another within the time allotted to him by the competent authority
and who cannot prove that in spite of his best endeavours he has been
unable to do so."
An Amendment of the Penal Code dated June 25, 1900, added to this list
of offenders procurers and _souteneurs_. The law enjoins that persons
convicted of misdemeanours as above may be handed over to the State
police authorities after undergoing the allotted imprisonment, with a
view to their further detention in Labour Houses, there to be usefully
employed under strict control. Some of the Prussian Labour Houses are
used, to a small extent, for the reception of youths who are taken from
parental control owing to bad behaviour.
The mode of procedure under this law is very summary, but very
effectual. A vagrant, a loafer, or a work-shirker falls into the hands
of the policeman, who in Germany is taught to protect both the highway
and the street against uses for which they were never intended. By this
official he is haled before the _Amtsgericht_, which is a local Court
of First Instance for the adjudication of petty cases. As a rule, he
is sentenced to a few weeks' imprisonment, and to be afterwards handed
over to the _Landespolizei_ or State Police Authority. In effect, he is
despatched to the district in which the original offence was committed.
The whole of the documents in the case are passed on to the President
or Prefect of this district, and it is this official who fixes the term
of detention in the provincial Labour House. The maximum period is two
years, but whether the man obtains discharge at the end of a shorter
sentence depends entirely upon himself. If he shows distinct signs of
improvement as the result of his discipline, he may be released. If not
the sentence is probably prolonged for six months, or in bad cases to
the maximum term, at the end of which the prisoner must unconditionally
be discharged, whether reformed or not. In practice it rests entirely
with the Director of the Labour House to determine whether a sentence
should be prolonged or not, for though the District President nominally
decides, it is on the direct representation of the Director, whose
recommendation is seldom or never ignored.
Thus, the Labour House is not punitive in the technical sense; it
exists for the one purpose of training the lazy and the vicious to a
life of labour and industry. Labour Houses of this kind are found in
almost all the States, in numbers proportionate to the population. Some
of them, however, serve for large towns, as in the case of Berlin,
Hamburg, and Dresden. Prussia has twenty-five Labour Houses, of which
seven are for men only, two for women only, and sixteen for both sexes.
The following is a list of these institutions, with the accommodation
they afforded in the year 1908:--
GERMAN LABOUR HOUSES.
----------------+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------------------------------------
| | Accommodation for | Number of
| +---------------+---------------+------------+-----------+-----------+---------
Labour House | Province. | Detainees. | Wards. | | | |
(Locality). | +---------------+---------------+Dormitories.|Workrooms. |Sickrooms. |Cells and
| |Males.|Females.|Males.|Females.| | | | Cabins.
----------------+--------------+------+--------+------+--------_------------+-----------+-----------+---------
Tapiau | East Prussia | 392 | 80 | -- | -- | 11 | 9 | 6 | 23
Konitz | West Prussia | 350 | 100 | 170 | 100 | 16 | 8 | 13 | 13
Rummelsburg | Brandenburg | 400 | 300 | 225 | 75 | 20 | 30 | 20 | --
Strausberg | " | 380 | -- | 90 | -- | 10 | 41 | 9 | --
Prenzlau | " | 400 | -- | 80 | 26 | 9 | 23 | 12 | 12
Landsberg a. W. | " | 190 | 40 | 50 | 30 | 7 | 37 | 15 | 3
Neustettin | Pomerania | 150 | 10 | 40 | 20 | 9 | 11 | 13 | --
Ückermünde | " | 340 | 14 | 7 | 7 | 2
Stralsund | " | 120 | 25 | -- | -- | 5 | 4 | 4 | --
Greifswald | " | 110 | -- | -- | -- | 3 | 4 | -- | --
Bojanowo | Posen | 450 | -- | -- | -- | 2 | 26 | 8 | --
Fraustadt | " | -- | 130 | -- | -- | 4 | 5 | 3 | --
Schweidnitz | Silesia |1,200 | 150 | 130 | 50 | 46 | 64 | 16 | 13
Breslau | " | 600 | 300 | -- | -- | 22 | 17 | 8 | 2
Gross Salze | Saxony | 358 | 57 | 90 | 30 | 18 | 39 | 16 | 21
Moritzburg | " | 585 | 55 | 8 | 2 | 14 | 35 | 10 | 19
Glückstadt | Schleswig | 700 | 50 | -- | -- | 15 | 27 | 5 | 19
Bockelholm | " | 300 | -- | -- | -- | 2 | 6 | 3 | --
Benninghausen | Westphalia | 350 | 60 | -- | -- | 21 | 23 | 6 | 3
Breitenau | Hesse-Nassau | 300 | 35 | 30 | 5 | 5 | 14 | 4 | --
Hadamar | " | 236 | 80 | 10 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 5 | --
Brauweiler |Rhine Province|1,090 | 195 | 50 | 105 | 47 | 56 | 16 | 281
Moringen | Hanover | 800 | -- | -- | -- | 21 | 27 | 14 | 16
Wunstorf | " | 300 | -- | 550 | -- | 22 | 26 | 37 | 103
Himmelsthür | " | -- | 125 | -- | 190 | 10 | 7 | 11 | 29
----------------+--------------+------+--------+------+--------+------------+-----------+-----------+---------
The numbers of persons, detained for correction, dealt with by the
whole of the Prussian Labour Houses in the course of the administrative
year 1907-8 were as follows:--
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
| Males. | Females. | Total.
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
Number at the beginning | | |
of the year | 7,200 | 848 | 8,048
Admitted during the | | |
year | 6,716 | 731 | 7,447
Discharged during the | | |
year | 6,839 | 892 | 7,731
Number at the end of | | |
the year | 7,077 | 687 | 7,764
Total number detained | 13,916 | 1,579 | 15,495
Average number detained | | |
daily | 6,779 | 749 | 7,528
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
The persons detained were classified in the following groups of
occupations:--
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
| Males. | Females. | Total.
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
Agriculture, forestry, | | |
gardening, fishing, | | |
etc. | 923 | 30 | 953
Industry, mining, and | | |
building trades | 3,057 | 42 | 3,099
Trade and commerce | 717 | 17 | 734
Domestic service and | | |
casual labour | 1,488 | 296 | 1,784
Public service and | | |
professions | 114 | 5 | 119
No occupation, or none | | |
declared | 8 | 302 | 310
+--------+----------+--------
Totals | 6,307 | 692 | 6,999
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
Of 6,990 persons classified by age, 174 were under twenty-one years of
age, 262 were from twenty-one to twenty-five years of age, 529 from
twenty-five to thirty, 1,664 from thirty to forty, 2,231 from forty to
fifty, 1,532 from fifty to sixty, 548 from sixty to seventy, and 50
were seventy years of age and upwards.
The offences for which 6,299 male and 692 female inmates were committed
to the Labour Houses in that year were as follows:--
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
| Males. | Females. | Total.
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
Vagabondage | 328 | 47 | 375
Begging | 4,166 | 69 | 4,235
Begging and vagrancy | | |
together | 702 | 31 | 733
Laziness | 97 | 6 | 103
Professional immorality | 188 | 481 | 669
Work-shyness | 8 | 3 | 11
Homelessness | 810 | 55 | 865
+--------+----------+--------
Totals | 5,299 | 692 | 6,991
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
The periods of commitment by the judicial authorities were as under:--
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
| Males. | Females. | Total.
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
Three months or less | 20 | 5 | 25
From three to six | | |
months | 1,443 | 242 | 1,685
Over six months and | | |
under two years | 3,535 | 359 | 3,594
Two years | 1,599 | 85 | 1,684
+--------+----------+--------
Total | 6,297 | 691 | 6,988
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
Of the offenders enumerated above, 4,445 or 64 per cent. had been
detained in a Labour House before, and 2,293 or 33 per cent. had been
so detained more than three times, while 5,865 or 84 per cent. had been
in prison. Further, 1,253 or 18 per cent. had been recommitted to a
Labour House within twelve months of their last discharge from the same.
Most of these Labour Houses are situated in the open country, and
follow a mixed economy of agriculture and industry, though the number
of men who can be employed usefully in farm work would appear to be
small. The following statement of the different modes of employment
in force in 1908 comprises young people detained for reformation, in
addition to the adults committed by judicial process for disciplinary
reasons:--
EMPLOYMENT OF DETAINEES.
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
| Males. | Females. | Total.
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
Average daily number | | |
of detainees | 8,775 | 1,275 | 10,050
Average daily number | | |
employed | 7,290 | 904 | 8,194
Character of | | |
employment-- | | |
1. For the Labour | | |
Houses-- | | |
(_a_) Domestic work | 1,524 | 372 | 1,896
(_b_) Agriculture | 551 | 32 | 583
(_c_) Other work | 642 | 85 | 727
+--------+----------+--------
Total (_a_), (_b_),| | |
(_c_) | 2,717 | 489 | 3,206
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
2. For the Provincial | | |
Authorities | 1,903 | 88 | 1,991
3. For the Public | | |
Authorities | 105 | -- | 105
4. For officers of the | | |
establishments | 124 | 23 | 147
5. For outside persons--| | |
(_a_) Agricultural | | |
work | 704 | 21 | 725
(_b_) Industrial work | 1,737 | 283 | 2,020
+--------+---------+---------
Total (_a_) and | | |
(_b_) | 2,441 | 304 | 2,745
------------------------+--------+----------+--------
In considering the industrial methods on which the Labour Houses are
administered, it may be well to bear in mind the principles which are
applied to Prussian penal establishments in general, for they apply to
these institutions. A recent official statement upon the subject runs
as follows[60]:--
[Footnote 60: "Statistik der zum Ressort des Königlich Preussischen
Ministeriums des Innern gehörenden Strafanstalten und Gefängnisse und
der Korrigenden für das Rechnungsjahr 1903," pp. xx-xxii.]
"(1) The requirements of the individual establishments, and of the
prison administration in general, are as far as possible to be
supplied by the prisoners. All domestic work is to be done by the
prisoners; clothing and articles needed for bedding, etc., are also to
be done by them, and to this end weaving shops are provided in some
prisons. Repairs to buildings, works of rebuilding, extensions, and
new buildings are to be carried out by prisoners, who are specially to
be used in the construction of dwelling-houses for the officers.
"(2) The production of useful articles needed by the Imperial and
State authorities is to be encouraged as far as possible, and this
branch of work increases every year. Tailoring and other equipment
work for barracks and hospitals are largely done to the order of the
War Office, also furniture for official rooms for the State Railway
Administrations.
"(3) Criminal prisoners may be used for agricultural improvement works
on behalf of State and communal authorities, and also of private
persons, provided at least a year of their sentence has expired, their
conduct has been good, and the remainder of their sentence does not
exceed a year, or in exceptional cases two years. With their consent
correctional prisoners who have served six months (and in exceptional
cases three months), have been of good behaviour, and have not longer
than two years to serve, may be similarly employed. Criminal and
correctional prisoners may not be employed together; and they must
be kept apart from free workmen. In order to prevent injury to free
labour prisoners may only be employed in the manner stated if the
works in question would not otherwise be executed for lack of free
labourers, or because the high wages of the latter would make the
works unprofitable. Under the same conditions, prisoners may be put to
agricultural work. These works are done in all the provinces of the
Kingdom, and the following works are executed in particular:--
"(_a_) Moor land is cultivated in order to the settlement of farmers.
Thus the reclamation of the Augstumal Moor, in East Prussia, 3,000
hectares (7,410 acres) in extent, is in an advanced state, and
seventeen settlers have already been established there and provided
with houses. The Kehding Moor, in the Stade district, has now been
prepared for settlement, and five colonists are established. The
Bargstedt Moor is so far reclaimed that settlers may now be taken;
fifteen holdings of 12 hectares (30 acres) each are contemplated. In
the Eifel district 75 hectares (185 acres) of the High Venn plateau,
over 2,200 feet high, have been cultivated, and the first settlers
established.
"(_b_) Shifting sand dunes are made permanent.
"(_c_) Marshy ground is drained, damage done by inundations is made
good, water courses are diverted, and channels dug.
"(_d_) Fiscal domains are put into an efficient condition.
"(_e_) Vineyards are planted for the State on the Moselle.
"Experience has proved that prisoners can best be employed on such
works in gangs of from forty to sixty, under a chief overseer, assisted
by a sufficient number of warders." "The prisoners," says the official
document, show themselves to be willing, diligent, and apt in their
work; their productivity is inferior to that of free labourers only
at the beginning of their employment, and later it is equal. There is
no difficulty in maintaining discipline, and attempts at escape occur
very seldom. On the other hand the employment of small bodies of men
under the superintendence of one or two petty officers, especially
if it be in agricultural work, in which it is almost impossible to
prevent contact with free labourers, leads to serious abuses:--bribery,
insubordination, rebellion against the officers and even gross acts
of violence have occurred. Such small bodies of men, therefore, can
only be employed in exceptional cases where the conditions for the
maintenance of discipline are specially favourable.
"(4) The other prisoners are to be farmed to _entrepreneurs_ by
public contract for the carrying on of industrial work. Care must
be taken, however, that too many prisoners are not allotted to a
single employer, and that the number employed in a single industry
is not disproportionate to the number of free labourers engaged in
the same industry. Since 1869, the number of prisoners employed by
industrial _entrepreneurs_ fell from 73 to 27·2 per cent. in 1903,[61]
and a further decrease is probable owing to the extension of the
work done for the State authorities. Several establishments have
entirely discontinued the employment of prisoners in that way. By
the restriction of factory work, the individuality of the prisoner
can be better studied in the choice of employment for them, and the
justification is taken away from the complaints made by free workpeople
about the illegitimate competition of cheap prison labour, used by
capitalist employers. At the same time, the prison budgets are less
satisfactory than formerly as a consequence."
[Footnote 61: The proportion in 1869 was 73 per cent.; in 1895, 52 per
cent.; in 1896, 52·6 per cent.; in 1897, 49·1 per cent.; in 1898, 45·7
per cent.; in 1900, 40·4 per cent.; in 1901, 37 per cent.; in 1902,
32·8 per cent.; and in 1903, 27·2 per cent.]
In the prison accounts no allowance is made for the domestic and farm
work done by the prisoners. In calculating the value of all work done
for the Imperial and State authorities and for the general Prison
Administration wages are reckoned at 40 pfennige (5d.) per head per day.
"This rate of wages, which is far less than that paid by employers,
is taken arbitrarily, but in order to simplify the trade accounts and
particularly accounts with the various State authorities, a uniform
rate was necessary. If the rate is low, the Prison Administration must
console itself with the reflection that its losses imply saving to
other branches of the State service; the State, as a whole, does not
suffer injury. Moreover, the full value of the prisoners' work now
goes to the State, and not as formerly to private employers, and free
labour no longer suffers from the competition of prison work."[62]
[Footnote 62: _Ibid._]
Wages ranging, according to capacity and diligence, from 1 to 20
pfennige (100 pfennige =1s.) per day in the case of criminal prisoners,
and from 1 to 30 pfennige per day in the case of correctional
prisoners, are credited to the men, with the object of giving them
a favourable restart in life on their discharge. No part of the
accumulated bonuses is paid over during imprisonment until 30s. has
been earned by criminal prisoners, and 20s. by others, except that
payments may be made to a man's family out of his account; but one half
of all earnings beyond the minimum stated may be used in the purchase
of extra food, books, clothing, etc., though not of tobacco, the
smoking of which is not allowed.
The following statement gives the yearly cost per head in the financial
year April 1, 1907, to March 31, 1908, of the whole of the inmates of
the Prussian Labour Houses, with the value per head of the produce and
work done and the amount per head which fell upon the public funds:--
----------------+-----------------+------------------+-----------------
| Yearly Cost per | How the Cost was Covered.
Labour House. | Head of Average +------------------+-----------------
| Number of | (_a_) By Produce | (_b_) Public
| Detainees. | of the | Contributions.
| | Labour House. |
----------------+-----------------+------------------+-----------------
| Mark. Pfennige. | Mark. Pfennige. | Mark. Pfennige.
Tapiau | 642 51 | 302 64 | 339 87
Konitz | 383 27 | 204 46 | 178 81
Rummelsburg | 507 21 | 124 21 | 383 0
Strausberg | 434 0 | 215 0 | 219 0
Prenzlau | 547 15 | 280 46 | 266 69
Landsberg a. W. | 401 41 | 234 83 | 166 58
Neustettin | 442 68 | 268 24 | 174 44
Uckermüode | 406 31 | 221 54 | 184 77
Stralsund | 480 77 | 361 05 | 119 72
Greifswald | 340 0 | 220 29 | 119 71
Bojanowo | 355 45 | 172 14 | 183 31
Fraustadt | 694 49 | 145 23 | 549 26
Schweidnitz | 313 40 | 255 17 | 58 23
Breslau | 674 32 | 625 17 | 49 15
Gross Salze | 339 29 | 271 54 | 67 75
Moritzburg | 344 76 | 271 01 | 73 75
Glückstadt | 425 26 | 410 42 | 14 84
Bockelholm | 355 30 | 222 02 | 133 28
Benninghausen | 498 76 | 153 85 | 344 91
Breitenau | 453 84 | 397 70 | 56 14
Hadamar | 278 80 | 140 99 | 137 81
Brauweiler | 396 68 | 271 97 | 124 71
Moringen | 791 09 | 142 0 | 649 09
Wunstorf | 377 61 | 131 64 | 245 97
Himmelsthür | 363 42 | 159 13 | 204 29
----------------+-----------------+------------------+-----------------
It appears from this statement that the gross annual cost per head
ranged from £13 18s 10d. in the case of the Labour House at Hadamar (a
small institution) to £39 11s. at the Labour House at Moringen, and
that the net cost to the State ranged from 14s. 10d. per head in the
case of the Labour House at Glückstadt to £32 9s. at Moringen.