The NEUSTART Concept of Court Assistance

The original task and the primary objective of court assistance consists in supporting public prosecutor’s offices and courts with regard to their decision-making process when it comes to establishing adequate legal measures (sanctions, conditions) in connection with an offence.

Offences often provide information about the offender’s personality and come along with a particular social situation and circumstances which can be solved in many ways once they are identified, analysed and thoroughly dealt with. Initial interviews conducted by social workers are very helpful in this connection since they provide valuable background information on the basis of “anamnesis, diagnosis and prognosis” in order to enable judges and public prosecutors to take a legal decision which takes the particular situation of the offender and of the victim as well as the consequences of the offence into account.

Which tasks are assumed by court assistance?
During the preliminary proceedings, court assistance especially provides information about the character of adult accused persons, i.e. their professional development, personality genesis, restrictions due to their environment and their temperament: these are all factors which are absolutely relevant for the determination of the penalty or the suspension of the sentence on probation and therefore for the related conditions and orders.

In this connection, potential causes and motives resulting in committing offences are also studied. They also encompass prognoses on whether – and if yes, with which probability – it can be assumed that the accused is able to lead a proper life without committing further offences if he/she is not imprisoned but imposed with targeted rehabilitation measures.

In addition, court assistance becomes involved if legal decisions are to be prepared which relate e.g. to the ordering or the continuance of custody (so-called Haftentscheidungshilfe) or which “only” consist in obtaining a psychiatric/psychological expert opinion.

Another important task of court assistance is the preparation of reports on the situation of the victims, which exclusively focus on analysing and assessing the consequences of an offence for the victim – and on the related legal decision.

During the enforcement proceedings, court assistance can be asked to prepare the following decisions by collecting data and information:

• decisions relating to the suspension of the sentence on probation
  decisions in connection with the suspension of the remainder of a sentence on probation
  
• decisions within the scope of clemency proceedings and proceedings deciding on Registervergünstigungen [acceleration of the spent convictions time-limit]
  
• decisions on granting a reprieve, facilities of payment and on the renunciation of imprisonment as a substitute for non-collectible fine in the case of a sentence to pay a fine

Until 31st December 2006, court assistance was directly linked with the respective public prosecutor’s office which led to the fact that the individual court assistance offices developed different priorities for their work, specialised and developed different competence areas in many regions of Baden-Württemberg – always depending on the respective preference of the party ordering. The orders for collecting data and information given to court assistance in 2006, which amounted to a total number of 3,200, were spread quite differently across the state.

Now, NEUSTART is for the first time bringing all these individual competences together to a range of services which is homogenous from a content and qualitative point of view, which deals with the interests of all involved groups and which therefore takes all relevant aspects into account – the needs, wishes and expectations of clients on the one hand, and of the parties ordering on the other hand. These services take the whole range of available competences into account, promote them and make them being used. The total number of the cases is to remain unchanged.

NEUSTART aims at further optimising current proceedings with regard to court assistance – with recourse to tried and tested procedures. In cases where probation service is likely to be granted it is planned for example to ask NEUSTART experts for their opinion as a social worker already during the preliminary proceedings.

Intentions and objective of this project

• provision of case-relevant information: in the context of passing a sentence, the court then already disposes of information helping to decide whether the provision of probation service seems to be useful or whether other accompanying measures are to be taken in the respective case (e.g. conditions, imposing a therapy, victim-offender mediation).
  
• adequacy of the offered services: the portion of clients for whom probation support is the adequate means in order to prevent them from reoffending can be increased by early recommending the indicated measure. On the basis of this measure, the work load of probation officers can be significantly reduced since they do not have to work with clients anymore for whom other measures are more promising.

The NEUSTART concept of court assistance comprises numerous reform approaches, methodological innovations and exemplary methods which all focus on minimising the latent risk of reoffending – in the interest of the individual clients and to the benefit of the whole society.

Download our Brochure on Court Assistance.