Zur Bedeutung der Begründung pandemiebedingter restriktiver Maßnahmen für die Entwicklung von Verschwörungserzählungen im Justizvollzug

Coping with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic also presented the prison system with major challenges. Extensive measures to combat the pandemic had to be undertaken, which often involved substantial further limitations for prisoners and were also a particular burden for prison staff. This article examines how these measures were experienced in the enforcement system and how the agreement with conspiracy narratives as an individual justification for rejection of these measures can be moderated by the institutional management through the form of communicating these measures. For this purpose, 501 officials in the General Prison Service (AVD) and 956 prisoners from 6 Federal States were questioned. The results show a stronger agreement with conspiracy narratives on the side of the prisoners, which is also associated with a much lower estimated appropriateness of communicating these measures, even though the burden of both groups due to the measures to combat the pandemic were comparable. An analysis of the moderation shows that according to the concept of procedural justice the influence of the restrictions experienced on the agreement with conspiracy narratives can be alleviated by an appropriate communication of the restrictive measures. This moderation effect was clearly shown by the officials of the AVD but was only a tendency in the prisoners. Nevertheless, from the results it can be concluded that restrictive measures should be transparently and comprehensibly conveyed not only in cases of future crises, in order to avoid a rejection of the measures justified by conspiracy narratives.