The Right of Freedom

I'm not feeling very well.. I have some pain and the feeling that I will get sick again. My CFS is 'back', not that it went anywhere but I had the feeling that it took a short break. Now it is back and I could sleep all day. I guess that's the weather changing again, I want some stable weather!

Everything else is OK. I'm working a little more than I wanted this month but that's fine because I'm training the new colleague so I'm not sitting there alone all day. I got some grades until now I passed all the exams I wanted to pass. It's now not even two weeks until my flight and I can't wait :D. I'm running errands and taking advantage of my health insurance in going to every doctor to do a check up, what was not that much fun at the dentists.. I'll have to go back because he actually found something :(.

Today I want to tell you about something that is happening in Germany.
A court has the possibility to convict a person not only to a jail term for a few months/years but to decide that a person is too dangerous to be released after it. They can get a prolonged sentence and then have to stay in jail for much longer in preventive detention. This decision could not only be made at the time of their trial but also afterwards after an expert assesment. In 2009 the European Court of Human Rights decided that it is a violation of the criminal's fundamental right of freedom to convict them to preventive detention after their trial.

What happenes now is that over 100 highly dangerous criminals are released from preventive detention and can get up to 70,000 Euros of compensation. Among these criminals are also many sexual reoffenders. Many were already released and are now watched by up to 50 police officers 24/7. There is no reporting obligation for sexual offenders in Germany so the ones that are not watched, because there are just not the resurces to do so, can in theory go anywhere and nobody will know how dangerous they are. In Germany sexual offenders unfortunately don't normally get a high prison sentence and many are released and back in jail for the same offence a few years later.

Our society is much too concerned about what happenes with the offenders. I understand that there are therapies and that some criminals can be rehabilitated but my opinion is that a sexual offender can't. And when there even is an expert assessment stating that, I don't get how somebody like that can be released. It is not a matter of being in preventive detention because they don't belong there, no they are worried about there right of freedom! In my opinion the forfeited their right of freedom the second of their sexual offence. Nobody thinks about the victims. They did get a life sentence. What about their right of freedom?

Let's compare what happens to the offender and to the victim after the trial.
The offender is going to jail, if it is not his/her first offence. If it is the first one they can even get out on probation. If in jail the offender can decide to go to therapy, which is provided for them as long as they are in jail and in the preventive detention (if it was decided for him to stay there). After the jail sentence they get a second/third or fourth chance.
The victim has to fight for every month of therapy with the health insurance and from now on spends about half of their income (if they are mentally able to work) in therapy. They are lucky if they get a year of therapy and then have to prove to the insurance that they need it over and over again. In the end they normally end up paying it themselves. Their life is going to be different forever, not only for 5 years (that's the sentence many sexual offenders get). There is no second chance for a normal life.

Something must happen to stop this development. It is not only unfair it is unacceptable. There must be a way to protect us from them being released. Many of them will be back in jail because of new offences but why do we need new victims to see how dangerous these people are? Can't that be avoided?