Abstract:

In many countries, the prison system tries to support the rehabilitation of offenders providing them with the possibility to acquire vocational education and training. The hope is that the ex-offender will be able to earn his income by means of a regular job (which is accepted by society), thus avoiding a vicious circle of "no chances on the labour market due to missing qualifications" - "earning money by offending" - "prison stay" - "no chances on the labour market due to missing qualifications and due to a prison stay in the CV".

The disadvantage of most of these training actions is that the qualification enables the inmate only to "get a job", i.e. to be employed. This leads to a certain dependency from the employer and also from the needs of a labour market that may have no need for certain qualifications at a certain time - the labour market situation may have an influence on decisions like "release or no release".

This is the starting point of the EU-funded project MADE IN JAIL!, which wants to provide prisoners in manual work with the necessary knowledge and competences to run their own virtual e-shop - a place where they can sell the goods they produce in prison. The training course has a technical (how to use the software), an entrepreneurial (how to calculate prices; methods of payment via the internet) and a customer-relation (how to comunicate with virtual clients) component.

In three different settings (closed regime with male adult inmates; semi-open regime with male adult inmates waiting for release; institution for juveniles of both genders at risk) the e-shop will be implemented and used during a certain period of time. The presentation will focus on the results of these experiences and on the feedback of the supervising tutors about the training system and the outcomes from their perspective.