What We’re Reading: What Americans Can Learn From German Prisons

What We’re Reading: What Americans Can Learn From German Prisons

What We’re Reading: What Americans Can Learn From German Prisons Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Let us know what you think at [email protected]. Opening up This past spring, U.S. prison officials from several states spent a week touring four German prisons “where inmates wore street clothes, maintained their right to vote, cooked their own meals, played in soccer leagues and learned skills like animal husbandry and carpentry,” the New York Times reports in a story shared by RTBC Contributing Editor Michaela Haas. This is part of a broader trend of states looking to European prisons, which experts say are much safer than those in the U.S. Michaela says: The first time I went to prison I was eight years old — because my mom worked at court in Germany and wanted to show me what prison looked like. Probably contrary to what she wanted to achieve, I thought prison was great! The cells were comfy, with TVs, and looked more like dorm rooms…