Imprisoned Mothers Are Not Entitled to Parental Benefits

The Baden-Wuerttemberg State Social Court ruled in a judgment dated 17.01.2012, that mothers have while serving a prison sentence is not entitled to parental benefits, as the condition of common household of parent and child are not met. This condition must be regarded as not present when the mother and child are housed in the prison together.

In the case at the 27-year-old mother brought her son during his time in prison to the world. The child's father also served a prison sentence. So the mother lived with her son in a special mother-infant department of a correctional facility, in which several women share with their children, a common living area with kitchen, bathroom, toilet and lounge. The applicant went from the third month of life the child during the day having been employed in a single operation of the correctional facility after. During this time her son was placed in a nursery outside the prison. Since the applicant received only a limited income, it was felt that it was entitled to parental benefit. The competent State Bank of Baden-Württemberg refused their request from but where the eligibility requirements are not a common household became available. Such a household within a correctional facility can not be justified.

The State Social Court confirmed the legal opinion in a landmark decision. In a correctional facility, the life of the detainees is largely determined by the requirements of the prison administration, so that no independent leadership and organization of the autonomous budget in this context is possible. The same applies if the detainees are in a parent-child institution. There are also mothers ultimately have no influence on the regulation of temporal and spatial co-existence with their child. Addition was considered that the applicant does not, but the youth welfare office for the care of the child comes up.

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