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.…