E. Dobrovolska: Lithuania must approach the standards of Western penitentiary institutions
It is envisaged that the Department of Prisons and its subordinate institutions will be reorganized into one legal entity – the Lithuanian Prison Service.
The centralization of the execution of sentences will allow optimizing the available human, financial and property resources, ensuring equal and more efficient management of the systems and more effective resocialization of convicts.
According to the Minister of Justice Evelina Dobrovolska, Lithuania must finally get closer to the standards of operation of Western penitentiary institutions.
“We can no longer afford to be indecisive. We all agree that the penitentiary system has been on the margins of public administration for too long. There are many things to fix, but we cannot wander in constant debate. We need to take political responsibility for decisions and results, so we thank the trade unions for their active participation, proposals and cooperation. We want officials to be freed from bureaucracy and to focus more on working directly with convicts. And the money saved would have provided a reward for the weather and opportunities for a new generation of professional development, ”the Minister emphasizes.
We all agree that the penitentiary system has been on the margins of public administration for too long.
The development of sentences and detention regulations in response to new current needs and the recommendations of international organizations includes more measures to motivate convicts to change more positively, enabling them to reduce their isolation from society, and to communicate more with relatives and others. The wording of the new Penitentiary Code also pays a lot of attention to the issues of re-socialization, employment and education of convicts.
According to E. Dobrovolskas, strengthening the maintenance of social contacts and integration of prisoners into society will lead to unrestricted visits with, frequent calls to relatives, and more favorable conditions for children to be transferred to open places of execution faster. Employment opportunities for convicts are also being expanded: individual activities of convicts are being regulated, volunteering is being encouraged, and motivational measures for convicts to change their range are being expanded.
“We will strive to enable all social partners, especially the non-governmental sector, to increase the employment of convicts, to strengthen non-formal education and the development of social skills,” says E. Dobrovolska.
Ensuring higher quality of resocialisation of convicts and wider access to much-needed services for convicts: expanding treatment for addictive disorders, expanding access to psychological assistance and social services.
At the same time, various existing regulatory measures are being pursued, such as the problem of a very sensitive problem for the community of the penitentiary system, which in principle does not provide effective tools to apprehend convicts in open colonies. The latter, who feel unpunished and do not return to an open colony over time, have to use a lot of human resources and the capacity of various institutions to search for and return them. These gaps in the new Penitentiary Code no longer exist, convicted offenders will no longer be able to continue to live in open prisons, and their living conditions may be tightened.
Ensuring the sustainable development of a dynamic security segment in the penitentiary system, standardizing and strengthening other security procedures will address the recommendations of the European Committee against Recommendations on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which is planned to exceed 60%. reduce the number of criminal offenses registered in prisons.
The projects aim to standardize and strengthen other security procedures by introducing new working methods to change the perception of staff in relation to prisoners. Long-term co-operation with the Norwegian penitentiary authorities will make a significant contribution to this goal, as the staff of prisons are already well trained to deal with convicts and detainees through the adoption of good practice, as are staff training standards.
Expected change
According to the Ministry, the current penitentiary system is outdated and inefficient, and complex measures are needed to ensure a modern and efficient process, so it is important to move from the imitation of resocialisation to the systematic correction of real prevention and behavior and the elimination of implementation subculture.
The institutional reform of the penitentiary system is expected to lead to a much more efficient management of the system, a significantly shorter decision-making chain, and a more expeditious and subsidiarity-based decision-making process. 40% is planned during the transformation. to reduce the number of individual structural units by as much as 55%. reduce the number of posts held. The aim is to ensure that no more than 20% is allocated to the administration of the Lithuanian Prison Service. staff, where various administrative functions are currently performed by as many as one third of the total system staff.
More efficient governance and decision-making processes in the penitentiary system, reduced administrative burdens and redeployment of human resources will increase the scope for directing work with convicts and detainees, ensuring that no more than 20 convicts work with a single officer. This is expected to improve not only the effectiveness of the re-socialization of convicts, but also to ensure more effective security of prisons, thereby reducing the number of cases of violence, autoaggression and suicide, subcultural manifestations and the use of psychoactive substances.
The reorganization also meets the expectations of the staff of the penitentiary system, as the planned changes will allow balancing the remuneration policy and the workload of the staff, creating a more attractive working environment.
Ensuring the sustainable development of the dynamic security segment in the penitentiary system, standardizing and strengthening other security procedures has led to more than 60% reduce the number of criminal offenses registered in prisons.
The Ministry of Justice hopes that all these measures will enable the penitentiary system to become more efficient, mobile, open, transparent and leading, and that the number of people returning to prisons will be reduced from 60%. up to 40 percent
It is expected that these initiatives will be approved by the Seimas this June.