|
|
|
Edition 2: September 2013 - In This Issue:
|
|
|
|
|
|
EUROPRIS WELCOMES ITS NEWEST MEMBERS
In the last couple of months EuroPris has been fortunate enough to welcome two new members - Luxembourg and Georgia (affiliate). This now takes EuroPris membership to 18 full members and 1 affiliate member. These additional memberships help to enhance EuroPris' European profile as well as allowing EuroPris to become increasingly representative of prison services across Europe. We aim for EuroPris' membership to continue growing into 2014 and welcome any expressions of interest from potential members.
| |
|
|
EUROPRIS NEWS
EuroPris' Strategy to 2016
The EuroPris strategic plan has recently been signed off by the board to enable EuroPris to move forward as an organisation and meet it's objectives. With the mission of being the recognised authority on prison policy and practice and the voice of prison professionals to promote ethical and rights based imprisonment in Europe, the board have agreed on a set of strategic objectives for the 2013-2016 period and the subsequent results to be achieved. Objectives and results include: Credible representation of European prison services, achieved through broad cross Europe membership of EuroPris; enhanced practitioners co-operation and exchange of best practice and becoming a European network by being the source of information and contacts for European Prison matters. Please click here to view the EuroPris strategic plan.
Affiliation agreement with CEP
Since its founding EuroPris has had a close collaboration with the CEP and this year the two organisations decided to jointly draft an affiliation agreement which has been signed by the President of the CEP - Marc Ceron and the President of EuroPris - Hans Meurisse. The signing of the affiliation agreement formalises the further collaboration between the CEP and EuroPris and bridges the gap between prison and probation across Europe.
One of the core aims of the establishment of EuroPris as an organisation has been to facilitate the exchange of best practices and knowledge among practitioners in the prison sector across Europe. The CEP plays a similar role in the field of probation and therefore this close collaboration will enable EuroPris to learn from CEP experiences and will provide support, knowledge and a wider European network to assist each other where relevant.
|
 PRESS ROOM |
|
EUROPRIS EXPERT GROUPS 2013/2014
Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA - Transfer of Prisoners
On 29th and 30th August 2013 this EuroPris expert group met in Bru  ssels to discuss a number of topics surrounding the implementation of the FD 909 on the Transfer of Prisoners. The workshop was attended by representatives from 5 Member States that had already transposed this Framework Decision and a representative from the European Commission. The Group recognised that it was still early days in terms of the implementation of the Framework Decision although most experts now had experience of transferring prisoners both into and out of their countries. Based on this experience, the experts made a number of recommendations intended to help improve the process for both prisoners and those officials involved in the transfer process. These recommendation focus largely, although not exclusively, on the provision of information. To view these recommendations click here.
Benchmarking and Statistics
EuroPris has hosted its first expert group meeting on Research and Statistics, comprising of representatives from six European National Prison Agencies (Croatia, Finland, Netherlands, Romania, Scotland and Slovenia). The aim of this new group is to work collaboratively to assist in the collection and dissemination of information to provide valuable information back to the National Prison Agencies across Europe.
Through engagement with prison services this group will determine areas of interest and value with the intention of collating and sharing this data among National Agencies to enhance clarity, understanding and transparency across the region.
Supported by the knowledge and experience of the International Roundtable for Correctional Excellence the team will work in partnership to form and agree common data standards to enhance the sharing of meaningful and useful information. EuroPris openly welcomes the involvement of other interested parties who may conduct similar activities within the field to ensure alignment and understanding for the betterment of European corrections.
|
|
Staff training and development
On 20th September a joint CEP - EuroPris expert meeting will be held in Utrecht on staff training and development. Participants will include experts from the probation sector, Avans University, Utrecht and the prison sector. Prison sector experts will come from Slovenia, Scotland, Norway and the European network of Prison Training Academies. These experts will collaborate on the day to define joint topics both for future cooperation and to be addressed at a workshop planned for the Netherlands in December this year.
Foreign nationals in prison
The CEP and EuroPris will hold a joint expert meeting on foreign national prisoners on 3rd October. A Special Interest Group on this topic has worked under the umbrella of CEP for many years. With closer cooperation between CEP and EuroPris it was proposed to revive this group under a joint umbrella. Participants from probation and prison services as well as non-government organisations (NGO's) and universities active in the field will look into the needs of both sectors and define new aims and objectives for the special interest group. From the prison sector there will be experts from the Netherlands' National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), the Austrian and Norwegian Prison Service's and the University of Nottingham (previously involved in the CoE Recommendations on Foreign Prisoners). |
 TRANSITION MANAGEMENT OF HIGH RISK OFFENDERS ACROSS EUROPE Septembers Feature Article In our first newsletter in July we invited you to contact us regarding any specific news, projects or topics that you would like to highlight in our newsletter. In this edition, we are featuring the JCN project and the SOMEC project, both of which address the movement of high risk, serious or violent offenders across Europe. The Justice Co-operation Network (JCN) aims to develop a European network and database of best practice in the transition management of prisoners leaving custody with a focus on high risk offenders. The network focuses on the co-operation between criminal justice agencies, statutory and voluntary providers and other partners involved in the reintegration of offenders. This project aims to develop minimum standards and a best practice model for managing the transition of high risk offenders to ensure continuity and consistency of supervision and other services. To access the JCN website click here. The SOMEC project, led by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) in England and Wales, pays attention to the management of high risk offenders on a European level, specifically focusing on the data and information sharing between jurisdictions on such offenders travelling across borders. Project partners are from across Government in the UK as well as Catalonia (ES), Latvia and the Netherlands. SOMEC is currently seeking to engage law enforcement professionals and case/offender management professionals to participate in interviews with our expert research team from De Montfort University in the UK. For further information on SOMEC and for contact information on how you can get involved please follow this link. |
|
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
EuroPris Conference and AGM, 26th November, Brussels, Belgium
The second EuroPris Annual General Meeting (AGM) and conference will take place on 26th November in Brussels. Presentations at the conference will look to the following topics: 'managing extremism', 'sports in prison', 'normalizaton' and 'prison conditions'. The conference will be held during the first part of the day and is open to all interested parties. The AGM will take place in the afternoon for (potential) members of EuroPris, members of the Criminal Justice Platform and representatives of the Council of Europe and the European Commission. For further information on the conference and/or the AGM please see the agenda and/or contact the EuroPris office manager.
Other forthcoming events:
- European Prison Regime Forum (EPRF) Annual Conference, October 2013, Portugal
- CEP and EuroPris joint special interest group on foreign national in prisoners, 3rd October, The Netherlands
- World Congress on Probation, 9th - 10th October, London, UK
- ICPA Annual Conference, 27th October - 1st November 2013, Colorado Springs, US
- JCN Worksop on "Best practice in transition management", 30th October - 2nd November, Helsinki, Finland
- European Commission and EuroPris Expert Workshop on Framework Decisions 2008/909/JHA, 200/947/JHA and 2009/829/JHA, 13th November, Brussels, Belgium. Expressions if interest to attend this meeting should be sent to the EuroPris communications manager.
- EuroPris AGM and Conference - 26th November 2013 - Brussels
- CDAP Meeting - 27th - 29th November - Brussels
- EP and CEP joint workshop on staff training and development - December 2013 - The Netherlands
|
|
 GET INVOLVED WITH EUROPRIS Would you like to see an article of yours in the next newsletter? If you have something you would like to disseminate to a wider European audience then here's your opportunity - email your article abstract to the Communications Manager and 1 or 2 successful articles will be added to each edition of the newsletter. Interested in getting involved? If you have the skills or knowledge relevant to any of our expert groups then we want to hear from you, please contact us with your details, area of expertise/knowledge and how you would like to get involved |
|
CONTACT US
EuroPris,
P.O.Box 13635
2501 EP The Hague
Netherlands
+31-6-2505-5692
|
|
STAY CONNECTED 
|
|
EuroPris is supported by the Directorate General Justice of the European Commission
|
|
|
|
|
|
