IRZ is supporting Armenia in restructuring the penitentiary system in Armenia
- Details
- Published: June 23, 2023
IRZ is supporting Armenia in converting the penitentiary system into a rehabilitation plan system, and has been providing consultations and staff training at various prisons for several years as part of the reforms.
In accordance with the Armenian Penitentiary Code dated 1 September, 2022 a commission must be formed to evaluate the rehabilitation measures that should be carried out. The results of work with a prisoner are evaluated individually and, in the case of early or conditional release, the commission makes a recommendation to the court. The members of the commission include psychologists and social workers. There is therefore an urgent need to provide further training to specialist staff, particularly in these two professions, to draw up an individual implementation plan and to conduct an expert assessment to then make the relevant recommendation. Thus the concept of providing such training arose.
IRZ is using the current series of measures to focus on social workers and psychologists who took part in the first pilot project on the penitentiary system (2017-2020).
In this context, from 4-7 May, 2023, IRZ held the first training session for the specialist services in the Correctional Facility arising from the series of measures “Measures for diagnostics and prognosis and the implementation of treatment programmes in the training centre in Karbi”.
The training was opened by Tadevos Nalbandyan, Deputy Head of the Penitentiary Department of the Ministry of Justice of Armenia, the Head of the Training Centre, Zonik Margaryan, and Amalia Wuckert, IRZ Project Manager responsible for Armenia. The training was predominantly conducted by Betina Schilling, Senior Psychology Counsellor and Deputy Head of the Training Centre at the Centre for the Penitentiary System in Baden-Württemberg as an expert from the IRZ. Thomas Müller, Senior Government Director and Head of the Karlsruhe Correctional Facility and Senior Official Heiko Oberle, Head of Administration at the Mannheim Correctional Facility, took part in the first day of training as the German experts.
The event focused on the following topics:
- Measures for diagnosis and prognosis
- Implementation of treatment programmes for sex offenders and violent offenders; the role of specialist services
- Criteria for measures to open the prison and for preparation for release
- Criteria for a conditional release
In addition to exploring these topics and the discussions, the aim of the training was to create a template for writing statements. All these objectives were achieved. The interest in the topics of the event and in the discussion was consistently very high. The content that was communicated on the subject of implementation, prognosis and recidivism was successfully implemented in group work.
There is a clear willingness to implement reforms. The participants were extremely enthusiastic and proactive, and engaged in some lively discussions.