The pilot project TANDEM focuses on the support of the career orientation and the employability of young prisoners and combines it with approaches for a self-responsible and violence-free conduct of life. Educational and development concepts come to the fore, which deal with substantial challenges in the everyday life of the prison system.

TANDEM combines penal institutions (JVA) and business colleges in four regional partnerships:

  • JVA Aachen - Business college EST Geilenkirchen
  • JVA Gelsenkirchen - Eduard-Spranger Business college Gelsenkirchen
  • JVA Bielefeld-Senne - Carl-Miele-Business college Gütersloh
  • JVA Schwerte - Cuno-Business college II Hagen

Aim of these regional tandems was to develop the site-specific concepts and to offer a (re-) orientation to young prisoners for their lives after imprisonment. Even the Prof. H.- Hugo Kremer and Prof. Marc Beutner look ahead to the future at the end of the project by formulating five theses:

Thesis I:

Career orientation and the sensitization of violence require an alignment towards the individual needs of development. Education programs for the career orientation and the sensitization of violence are to be conceptualized - like in TANDEM - as individual support frameworks.

Thesis II:

Both, the measure definition and implementation require competencies for the development and implementation of the measure. In the context of TANDEM it was important to have recourse to the connection of experts of penal institutions and business colleges to meet this challenge.

Thesis III:

Measures for individual career orientation and requirements of the penal institution are integrated in different and difficultly reconcilable cultures. It is not enough to entrench an education program but the associated ´cultural concept´ has to be anchored in the prison system. The connection can be established through cooperative tasks between the stakeholders.

Thesis IV:

Teachers of business colleges are an essential base for a promising continuation of the measures for career orientation in the penal system.

Thesis V:

Vocational education in the penal system should be perceived as an occupation-educationally relevant sector. For this purpose, the corresponding conditions are to be made.

The project “TANDEM”  was promoted within the scope of “XENOS – integration and diversity” by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the European Social Fund.

Funding sources

Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales

Funding sources

Europäischer Sozialfonds für Deutschland