32. Correctional services, including non-custodial sanctions

A growing prison population is a challenge for many countries. Norway will support the improvement of correctional services, including promoting alternatives to imprisonment. Focus will be on the rehabilitation of prisoners. The Norwegian Correctional Services will work with counterparts in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The Council of Europe will cooperate with the authorities in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Malta will also focus on vulnerable groups in prison. In Latvia, a new prison unit will be established, and the standard of detention centres will be improved.

Overall objective

Each programme that will be set up within the programme area 'Correctional services, including non-custodial sanctions' will contribute to the overall objective of improved correctional services system in compliance with relevant international human rights instruments.

Expected outcomes

Each programme must have one or more 'expected outcomes', as listed below. The relevant expected outcomes for each programme is agreed either in the country-specific Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on how the funds will be managed or determined in the programme development phase.

• Overcome challenges connected to growing prison populations and prison overcrowding
• Increased application of alternatives to prison
• Increased focus on vulnerable groups in prison
• Improved competences of both inmates and prison staff

Suggested activities

Activities that may be supported within each programme will differ, depending on the chosen expected outcomes. Below are some examples to illustrate what may be supported:

• Expand national systems for alternatives to prison
• Improve conditions and staff competence with regard to vulnerable groups, e.g. women and juvenile offenders
• Ensure constructive activities, employment, education and training of inmates
• Ensure adequate health care, including approaches to address substance abuse among offenders
• Develop recruitment strategies and further develop the training of staff
• Improve preparations for release and reintegration into society
• Improve material conditions
• International cooperation to enable transfers of sentenced prisoners to their country of origin
  

Relevance of support

The UN and the Council of Europe – of which all EU/EEA EFTA countries are members – have over the years developed specific standards in the penitentiary field. The standards are found in recommendations, in binding texts like conventions and protocols, as well as in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. The observations of the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) and the reports of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) show a wide range of problems and concerns in places of detention in Contracting States.

Many of the Beneficiary States have to deal with the consequences of growing prison populations, with overcrowding and ill health as a result. The effects of, for example, tuberculosis and other contagious diseases remain very serious in some countries. In addition, the increasing number of prisoners with a drug problem is of growing concern, as is the importing of drugs into prisons. According to assessments, poor infrastructure, lack of qualified personnel, insufficient sanitation and accomodation, and shortages of meaningful activities for inmates are challenges in this sector. In many countries, alternatives to prison are rarely used, rehabilitation and reintegration efforts are few, and conditions in pre-trial detention need improvement.

A number of prison projects and professional partnerships have been established under the Norway Grants 2004-09.

Programme area specificities

• Suitable for civil society involvement
• Might be suitable for involvement of the Council of Europe

Photo: Latvian Prison Administration