While a broad debate on carceral geographies has been part of human geography and related disciplines in English-speaking academia, there are only scarce publications among German-speaking geographers. This special issue aims at bringing different researchers and their rich and diverse research insights in the carceral field into a dialogue.

This intervention argues for a German carceral geography that takes the framework of abolition seriously to develop a deeper understanding and critique of the exercise of power in institutional spaces. My claim is that we need to adapt abolition as a theoretical perspective and form of knowledge that allows us to expand the analysis of carceral practices and rationalities beyond imprisonment to include other institutional spaces of racialising, classing and disabling marginalisation.

The article analyses the role of detention centres within refugee camps. Why is it important for the functioning of the refugee camp? How is the detention centre linked to other elements within and outside of the camp through certain practices? The former refugee camp of Moria serves as an example. It turns out that mostly asylum seekers with low recognition rates are detained in order to prevent the provision of information and help from outside in order to make a negative decision more likely.

This article discusses the methodological and ethical challenges of researching prison letters through a narrative approach. After giving insight into the work of the OLGa Collective and its archive of letters, I problematise the environment of prison spaces that shape inmates' subjectivities and then develop a discussion of the narrative approach by exploring the author's role as booklet editor and researcher, spanning activism and academia and his quest of speaking for others.

Dieser Betrag bietet eine Analyse deutscher Staatsschutzverfahren, die im Hinblick auf ihre Anklageschriften, Verfahrensverläufe und Verurteilungen für die Jahre 2015–2020 qualitativ ausgewertet wurden. Anhand ihrer zeige inwiefern durch die Hinzunahme der Sicherungsverwahrung und der Möglichkeit asylrechtlicher (Folge-)Maßnahmen im Kontext dieser Verfahren eine Ausweitung von Haft für nicht-deutsche* Täter*innen auf mehreren Ebenen sowohl ermöglicht als auch praktisch vollzogen wird.

The conditions of social work in prisons are seldomly researched. In particular, we focus on its spatial conditions as it works with and for people who are confined, but it is also carried out under conditions of confinement. Based on insights from two prisons in Switzerland we analyse these conditions by focusing on spaces, bodies and emotions. The materiality of the prison translates into the prison logics and enforces them in complex ways on the bodies of prisoners as well as social workers.