The first meeting of the FNP Expert Group in 2015 took place in Bucharest following the EU funded STEPS 2 Project Conference. It was beneficial to combine the FNP Expert Group meeting with this dissemination conference on prisoner transfer under EU Framework Decision 909, given its relevance for the Expert Group members.

The Expert Group had a fresh start in 2016 by welcoming seven new members, nominated by EuroPris members and CEP. EuroPris nominations comprised Jennie von Alten, a Prison Governor of the Swedish Prison & Probation Service, Smiljka Barancek, Head of Unit from the Croatian Prison System Directorate and Isabelle Storme Psychological Advisor, Belgian Prison Service. Also nominated, Henrik Marker, Prison Governor of the Danish Prison and Probation Service was unable to attend the meeting in person. New nominated members from the CEP were Sonia Crozier, Deputy Director South East & Eastern National Probation Service, (England & Wales), Iuliana Carbunaru of the Romanian Probation Service and Gerhard Ploeg, Senior Advisor from the Directorate for Correctional Services, Norway.

The work undertaken by Group members to date from the 2015-2017 work plan was reviewed as well as the Group’s redrafted Terms of Reference. Particularly, the Research Study undertaken by Dr. Roisin Mulgrew, (member of the Expert Group and assistant professor at Nottingham university) into the implementation of the Council of Europe’s Recommendations on Foreign National Prisoners in foreign national only prisons. Dr Mulgrew was invited to present her research findings to the CoE’s Council for Penological Cooperation (PC-CP) in October 2015 joined by Kirsten Hawlitschek (EuroPris), co-chair of the FNP Expert Group.

The Expert Group further concentrated on the planning for a Foreign National Prisoners Workshop to be held in November 2016. Details of this workshop will be announced this summer, the drafting of a ‘Good Practice Handbook on Working with Foreign National Prisoners’ as well as a training event later this year for representatives of European Prison Services (prison governors and staff trainers) on how the CoE’s Recommendations on Foreign Prisoners can be and have been put into practice.

The FNP Expert Group, which is a unique collaborative Expert Group between EuroPris and the CEP, is looking forward to a busy and productive year in this important subject area using the experience of its prominent members.

Two events with a focus on Foreign Nationals took place in Amersfoort, The Netherlands in February. On 12 February 2015 Anniversary of the organisation Education behind Foreign Bars was celebrated with an international conference. The next day, February 13 2015, the EuroPris/CEP expert group on Foreign National Prisoners held an expert meeting to establish a focus and plan their activities for 2015.

At the Foreign National Expert meeting organized by EuroPris / CEP the participants from the prison and probation services and university of Nottingham discussed the concrete activities that the group can take up in the current year to increase the attention for Foreign Nationals in Prison. Building on the intentions of the Council of Europe to evaluate the implementation of their recommendations, the expert group came right after the meeting to an agreement with the CoE to provide a presentation to the plenary session of the Council for Penological Cooperation on the implementation of the 2012 Recommendation on Foreign Nationals.

Foreign National Prisoners is an issue if growing importance for European Prison Services. EuroPris and CEP decided to address this issue jointly and developed with the support of their FNP expert group an agenda for the workshop. The workshop was held in London 20-22 October 2014, and was attended by 60 participants from 14 countries and 17 Prison and Probation agencies.

The workshop focused on a comparison between prisons with 100% FNP and FNP dominated prisons and deal with the issues of release, resettlement and reintegration of FNPs. The participants at the workshop also had the opportunity to visit Maidstone prison, which is a 100% FNP prison.