Dear EuroPris Members,
As President of the Board I would like to wish you a successful new year and take the opportunity to reflect upon EuroPris’ recent activities and developments.
Networking and collaboration continues to be essential for EuroPris as a knowledge hub and point of contact for penitentiary issues in Europe. In this sense 2018 was a year of progress. EuroPris arranged workshops, expert meetings and conferences, some of them jointly arranged with other organisations. Collaborations were for example with CEP on a workshop about foreign nationals in prison and probation. We also arranged, together with ICPA, the Correctional Research Symposium. A joint EuroPris/CEP expert group on domestic violence was approved at the AGM in June and will start its work in 2019. We also started a project together with the European Penitentiary Training Association (EPTA) to strengthen this important network.
In addition to these achievements the European Prison Information System (EPIS) has improved its position as a knowledge base for prison matters in Europe. EuroPris entered an agreement with the University of Lausanne to link EPIS data with the Council of Europe’s SPACE initiative. The purpose is to make EPIS a more comprehensive and interactive database of prison information. Progress has also been made in the dialogue with the European Commission to involve EPIS as part of the European e-Justice Action Plan. These are important steps to provide good and relevant online services to our members.
In 2019 several activities are being planned. To mention one of them the so much appreciated expert group on Family relations will continue its work but with new members and under a new name. The coming year’s focus for the group will be children of prisoners, supporting EuroPris members in the implementation of the newly passed Council of Europe recommendation on Children of imprisoned parents. This is a very good example of how EuroPris promote professional prison practice by linking policy development to practice.
We will continue improving the organisation, its activities and its services. I look forward to supporting this development.
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Anna Aristotelous
Director,
Ministry of Justice and Public Order: Department of Prisons
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What is your opinion on the role of women in the European correctional field?
The fair and successful management of a prison is not dependant on the gender of the Director or the Governor, but to the capability of identifying the needs and problems of the organisation, and effectively responding to them.
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Feature article:
United Nations’ work in prison rehabilitation
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Muriel Jourdan-Ethvignot is a Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer working with Prison-based rehabilitation programmes for United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In this article she describes the basis of UNODC’s work in the field of prison-based rehabilitation and provides an example from its project in Bolivia, more specifically on social reintegration of women offenders through vocational training, implemented under the Doha Global Programme.
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(Photo credit: OSCE Annual Report 2013-012)
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Call for contributions – feature articles
Did your service accomplish something recently? Or has your research impact on prison practice? The EuroPris community wants to know about it!
In each newsletter we give room for a 2-4 page feature article describing solutions to practical problems, recent research and in-depth analysis of common prison challenges. We want to encourage you to send us ideas for articles to
[email protected]
for publication during 2019.
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Call for papers - Staff recruitment workshop
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On
5-6 June, EuroPris will organise a workshop on the topic "The human resource – attracting, recruiting and keeping prison staff". Our members have expressed a need for exchanging knowledge and ideas about staffing - a major challenge in many prison services around Europe. The workshop will address issues like employer branding, training concepts and continuous professional development. Location will be announced soon on EuroPris website.
We now ask for your contributions to this workshop in terms of presentations and case descriptions. Success stories are of course welcome but the overarching purpose is learning from each other, also from mistakes.
Interested in presenting? Please contact Gustav Tallving, policy officer on this address by
15 February:
[email protected]
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Registration open - Radicalisation workshop
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14-15 March, EuroPris is organising a closed-door workshop in Brussels on "Radicalised Prisoners and Regimes". The workshop will be interactive, combining presentations from a variety of European countries. Topics will be models for managing radicalised prisoners, new research and mental health problems.
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Save the date - EuroPris Annual General Meeting & Conference
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This year the Cyprus Department of Prisons will host the EuroPris Annual General Meeting and Conference. The 32 EuroPris members will meet on the
20
th
May in the Adams Beach Hotel in Ayia Napa, Cyprus. As in previous years, the EuroPris events precedes the Council of Europe Conference CDPPS starting 21 May. An official invitation will be sent to EuroPris members in the beginning of February. Registrations for the event will be opened also in February.
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Registration open - Global Technology in Corrections Conference
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EuroPris and ICPA challenge technological companies, researchers and public sector experts to present new insights or ideas, innovative solutions or interesting pilot projects on how technology can be useful in corrections, both inside and outside the prison walls. The conference will be held
2-4 April in Lisbon and the main themes are:
Finding equilibrium, Evidence-based approaches and
Looking over the wall.
For more information and registration,
click here.
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Highlights from EuroPris Knowledge Management System
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Every week EuroPris received queries from member countries, and in this section we will highlight several KMS reports from the last months. Click on the link to view each KMS report:
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Barcelona Summer course – Criminal Justice in a polarising society
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The Criminal Justice Platform (EuroPris, CEP, EFRJ) will organise a new 3-day summer course from
2-5 July. The overarching topic will be "Criminal Justice in a Polarised Society". In the coming months the concrete topics for the three workshops will be developed and more information will follow.
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EuroPris on the E-Justice Portal
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EuroPris and its primary features and outputs are now available in the E-Justice Portal. This portal is conceived to be the future one-stop shop in the area of European justice. It already provides information on European justice systems in 23 languages.
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Out now! - Trial version of MenACE online course
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Project MenACE has developed online courses for prison practitioners touching on the topics mental health and palliative care in prisons. Module 1 is now openly available for piloting. It is divided into 10 main topics including for example Principles and Standards in prison health, Communicable diseases and Women’s health in prison. These are combined with exercises, a glossary and a set of specific resources for each chapter.
Please provide your input by filling in the Feedback Form in the Module folder.
Access the Module at the project
website.
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Self-realisation teachings for prisoners
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Shiva Trust is a charity that provides Hindu and Self-realisation books and distance learning courses to support individual’s mental and physical health and overall well-being. They have been offering their teachings to prisoners in the USA for some time now. These teachings, which include Hindu Philosophy, Meditation, Yoga, and practical knowledge for daily living, are now offered free of charge to any inmates interested.
Visit their
website
for more information.
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International training - Education behind bars
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Vocvo, the Flemish Support Centre for Adult Education, is hosting the second international training week “Education behind Belgian bars” from
6-10 May in Mechelen, Belgium. The training is for teachers, education coordinators and other stakeholders in prison education.
Deadline for registration is
1 February.
For more information and registration, click
here.
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New statistics on European prison development
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The Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics, better known as SPACE, recently published two longitudinal reports on prison development.
Prisons in Europe 2005-2015 presents data and country profiles on prison populations across Europe from 2005 to 2015.
Foreign offenders in prison and probation in Europe describes the development of foreign offenders during the same time period.
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ICT expert group meeting report
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Inmate self-servicing models and operations & security technology is the core business in prison ICT. This was concluded at the EuroPris ICT Expert meeting in Zagreb in November. The event was hosted by the Croatian Prison Service. During the meeting the group reflected on recent evolutions and changes in the area of ICT. The group discussed what kind of strategy EuroPris and the members need in the digital age, also related to new issues as Artificial Intelligence. Important is the aim to connect more with other expert groups, to support the CoE Conference of Directors of Prison and Probation (CDPPS) in Cyprus and to participate actively in the upcoming TIC Conference in Lisbon.
Read the meeting report
here
.
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FD 909 expert group meeting report
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The annual EuroPris FD909 meeting was held in Brussels on 26 and 27 September 2018 at the Belgian Prison Service Headquarters in Brussels. The meeting was chaired by Graham Wilkinson (England & Wales) and Katja Đogović (Finland). The event was attended by experts from 23 Member States as well as representatives from the European Commission and the EuroPris Secretariat.
Click
here to view the report.
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Radicalisation (closed door)
Workshop
Technology in Corrections Conference
8th EuroPris Conference & Annual General Meeting
20 May - Agia Napa, Cyprus
24th Council of Europe Conference of Directors of Prison and Probation Services
21-22 May - Agia Napa, Cyprus
Staff Recruitment Workshop
5-6 June - Location will be announced soon
Criminal Justice Platform
Summer Course
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European Organisation of Prison and Correctional Services (EUROPRIS)
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EuroPris
P.O. Box 13635
2501 EP The Hague
Netherlands
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