What constitutes good or effective reintegration? What can we learn from research and practice in this regard? Corrections are not only about the time spent in prison. Since most of the people that we incarcerate are released and returned back to their communities at some point, a significant task of criminal justice agencies is also to focus on this eventual ‘return’. For this symposium, we welcome both evidence-based and practice-informed discussions of how meaningful re/integration can be achieved. EuroPris and ICPA, in collaboration with the Portuguese Reintegration and Prison Service (DGRSP) are organising on 27-30 March 2023 in Porto, Portugal the Correctional Research Symposium (CRS) on Rehabilitating Reintegration: Research and Reflections on What Works. Click on the link below to view the full program and register.

This year the German Federal Ministry of Justice will host the EuroPris Annual General Meeting and Conference. The 35 EuroPris members are invited to meet on 5 June in Berlin, Germany. As in previous years, the EuroPris event precedes the Council of Europe Conference CDPPS on 6-7 June. The announcement of the EuroPris Prison Achievement Award winner will also take place at the AGM. Participation at the AGM is available to EuroPris members only. Read more about the event at the link below.

With the Prison Achievement Award, we want to highlight and celebrate developments, overcoming challenges, and initiatives that have been implemented in prisons across Europe. Prison practitioners from the Council of Europe area are welcome to nominate their work and submit their developments. The deadline for submitting an application is on 31 March 2023. The final results will be announced at the AGM on 5 June 2023 in Berlin to the European heads of prison services. The awarded prison representative will be invited to present their work and receive the award. To read more details on the criteria and how to submit an application, please visit the event page by clicking on the link below.

The 5th edition of the International Criminal Justice Summer Course is dedicated to ‘Mental Health Issues in Criminal Justice’. Mental health problems are more prevalent among offenders than in the average population, but assessment and efficient responses and support in prison, during probation, and in restorative justice remain a field to be further developed. Characteristics of mental health issues, dealing with substance use, suicide prevention, trauma-informed practices, as well as, staff mental well-being are all topics relevant to this course. It will be a unique international opportunity to meet professionals from different disciplines of the criminal justice field (prison, probation, and restorative justice). The course will take place in Barcelona, at the Centre for Legal Studies and Specialised Training on 4-7 July.

Spanish Penitentiary Organic Law (1979) establishes three levels of judicial sentences served in prison: level 1, for high-risk inmates is served in closed units (isolation); level 2 for common inmates is served in common and closed prisons; and level 3 is an open regime where sentences are served in Social Insertion Centers (SIC) or open prisons, (the terms are used interchangeably below). Here, people can leave the prison for some hours a day to work, attend intervention programmes, training courses or manage personal issues such as medical appointments. Traditionally, prisoners have been transferred to an SIC from ordinary prisons because their behaviour is good or they have a low risk of re-offending (a process known as “penitentiary progression”). In 2021, an internal directive (6/2020) was published, including relevant changes to this process. The Directive allows people sentenced to prison to enter a SIC directly with no need for progression from ordinary prisons and so to avoid some of the damaging side effects of imprisonment by serving the sentence in the community. Conditions are needed. This change has also resulted in an interesting difference in the way the open regime is understood and managed. To read the full article, click on the link below.

The EuroPris secretariat is based in The Hague, the Netherlands consisting of an Executive Director, (Gustav Tallving), a Deputy Director, (Justina Dzienko), an Office and Event Manager (Eugenia van Engelenhoven), a Communication Manager (Julia Ilyina), and a Financial Manager (Carla Huisman). All other staff members work part-time from different locations. They are Framework Decision 909 Coordinator, Nalini Hussain (seconded, London) and Foreign Nationals in Prison and Probation Coordinator, Petra Pavlas (seconded, Vienna). On the secretariat page, you may now read more about each team member, on their duties within EuroPris, and their background.

If all pre-trial detainees were released, most European countries would solve their overcrowding problem. Can prison services do more to fulfill the rights of pre-trial detainees? Are there solutions already in place which can be shared across Europe? These questions were discussed in a webinar organised by EuroPris and Penal Reform International on 14 February. Presentations were given by the French Director General of the French Prison Department, Laurent Ridel, and Policy Officer, Jesca Beneder from the European Commission. There was a panel discussion with Olivia Rope (PRI), Adriano Martufi (Researcher, University of Pavia), Ioana Morar (EuroPris Board Member, Romania), Kam Stevens, (Penal Reform Solutions UK), and Jesca Vonderscher (Prosecutor, Belfort Judicial Court). Are you interested to listen to presentations and discussions from the webinar? Recordings and presentations from the webinar are available on the link below.

As part of the EPTA II project, which is co-funded by the European Union’s Justice Programme, the EPTA network is organizing several cross-border trainings, where selected EPTA members will be hosting training on different topics. As such, the network is very happy to announce the following three trainings that are coming up: Restorative Practice in Irish Prison Service College on 17-18 May, Hostage Taking Situations in Penitentiary Environment in National Correctional Officers Training School Târgu Ocna, Romania on 23-25 May, and on Specifics of working with young offenders Training Centre for the Prison Staff, Croatia on 3-5 October. Click on the link below to read more about each training and register latest by 31 March.

The project "SERENY Strengthening approaches for the prevention of youth radicalisation in prison and probation settings " is inviting professionals to participate in a survey. The SERENY project aims to contribute to the prevention and decrease of radicalisation in European prisons by providing actionable knowledge on young adults (between the age of 18 and 29) inmates considered as vulnerable/at risk groups who could be or become radicalised and by assessing the effectiveness of existing radicalisation prevention programmes and practices. This survey will ask about perceptions and experience of your work with young people in prison. It will take approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete. The survey is available in English, Spanish, French, Slovenian, German, Italian and Albania. The Survey is open until end of April. Click on the link below to view the survey.

This new study, 'Prisons and Detention Conditions in the EU' commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the LIBE Committee, aims to provide background information and policy recommendations concerning prisons and detention conditions in the EU, on the basis of European and national regulations, legislation, policies and practices. Click on the link below to read the report.