Does everyone who boards a public bus or train in Germany even know that riding without a ticket is a criminal offense that usually results in a €60 ($70) fine? Or that people who don't pay the fine might end up in jail?

The somewhat unwieldy German word for this harsh penalty is "Ersatzfreiheitsstrafe" — literally "substitute prison sentence" — and can be as long as one year. In recent years, somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 people have served time in prison for fare evasion in Germany.

Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig now wants to change that. In an interview with the daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, the center-left Social Democratic (SPD) politician said she wants to "decriminalize" riding without a ticket and would prefer to avoid sending people to prison for it in the future. Hubig said: "Do people who cannot afford a ticket and ultimately end up in prison really belong there?"

Civil infraction vs criminal offense

Hubig wants to downgrade fare evasion from a criminal offense to a civil infraction, placing it on the same level as, for example, illegal parking.

She points to a clause in last year's coalition agreement that the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), formed with the SPD, which states that the new government will examine "which regulations are superfluous and can be repealed." According to Hubig, prison sentences for fare evasion fall into this category. She points to estimates that the costs to the already overburdened justice system amount to around €200 million per year.

Hubig has received backing from the German Bar Association (DAV), which represents around 60,000 lawyers throughout Germany: "The public benefit of criminalizing fare evasion is questionable, whereas the harm it causes society is immense," DAV Executive Director Sven Walentowski also told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.

Police union opposes the plans

Hubig made her proposal public over Easter and received quick responses from the CDU/CSU after the holidays. Their deputy parliamentary group leader, Günter Krings, said on Tuesday in Berlin: " It would be better if the Justice Ministry turned its attention to the real problems in criminal law."

One of Germany's police unions, the GdP, also warned against a change. Spokesperson Andreas Roßkopf said that Hubig's plan runs the risk "that a great many people simply won't care whether they have a ticket or not."

This could mean that Hubig's proposal may face the same fate as that of her predecessor Marco Buschmann, of the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). The former justice minister announced in 2023 that he would at least consider downgrading the offense from a criminal offense to a civil infraction. Meanwhile, a survey conducted at the time by the polling firm infratest-dimap found that about two-thirds of citizens were in favor of no longer sending fare evaders to prison.

Initiative bails out fare evaders

For years, the Freiheitsfonds ("freedom fund") initiative has been fighting against this law, which ultimately dates back to the Nazi era and went into effect in 1935. The organization is funded by donations and, according to its own figures, has bailed out nearly 1,700 people. On Tuesday, Leo Ihßen, spokesperson for the organization, said: "What is happening is outrageous: Most people who are imprisoned for riding without a ticket have never been convicted of a crime in court. They just received a summary judgment with a fine and then ended up in prison because they were poor. Every year, this madness impacts 9,000 people in Germany."

On its website, the initiative now lists 13 German cities that have chosen to refrain from filing criminal charges against people caught riding without a ticket. These include cities such as Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Bonn and Leipzig.

This article was translated from German.