Government allocates 24 million for the gradual closure of the Lisbon Prison | Prisons
The Council of Ministers this Thursday took on a proposal for the “gradual closure” of the Lisbon Prison Establishment (EPL), foreseeing an investment of 24 million euros until 2026 to create continuous vacancies in other restrictions that compensate for the blockade.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Justice (MJ), the Government took on a plan in the amount of 24 million euros to be invested in the country’s penitentiary park until 2026, with the aim of gradually creating new vacancies in prisons that compensate for the closure until it is the prison that “has the largest prison population”.
“So, in a first phase, nine existing and underused prison pavilions will be remodeled in the prisons of Alcoentre, Linhó and Sintra. In the next phase, an existing pavilion in the Prison of Tires, currently vacant, will be recovered, allowing to increase the accommodation capacity of this prison”, refers a note from the MJ.
In the final phase of the plan, which “should be fully implemented by 2026”, it is expected that “a new pavilion will be built at the Tires Prison, similar to the one that will be recovered, taking advantage of mutual valences and the existing physical proximity”.
“The requalification of the northern redoubt of the Caxias Prison Establishment also ended in this phase, integrating part of the solution for the final conclusion of the EPL”, explains the guardianship.
For the MJ, the gradual closure of the EPL, now approved, “is a measure of historic nature, which will significantly improve the living conditions of the inmates, but also of all the prison service staff who work there, and who honors the program of the XXIII Government for the area of Justice, based on the requalification and modernization of resources and infrastructures, namely as prisons and social reintegration”.
According to the Government, this plan “is, primarily, the requalification of existing infrastructures other prisons geographically close to Lisbon (ensuring that inmates stay close to their family network, something crucial for their reintegration), reclassifying and rebuilding vacant or underused pavilions, which will increase the capacity and existing accommodation capacity, with a view to rationalizing existing resources”.