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Welcome to the EuroPris Knowledge Management System. The table below shows questions and responses from European National Agencies. Select a question for more information or use the filters on the left to narrow down questions based on Agency or Category.
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Introduction: The Romanian Prison Service needs answers from abroad in order to motivate the necessity to involve the academic environment in two projects that are currently under development.
The Irish Prison Service provides a wide range of social reintegration and rehabilitative programmes to those in custody that include education, vocational skills training, healthcare (including addiction and mental health supports), psychiatric, psychological, counselling, welfare and spiritual services. These programmes offer purposeful activity to those in custody while serving their sentences and encouraging them to lead law abiding lives on release. These programmes are available in all prisons and all prisoners, including first time offenders, are eligible to use the services. The IPS began recruiting Assistant Psychologists to the IPS Psychology Service in 2016. Assistant Psychologists focus primarily on mental health and sentence management work with prisoners. Specifically, Assistant Psychologists are tasked with completing Strength, Risk and Needs Assessments of young persons, 18-24 years, who are committed to custody on a sentence of one year or more and who do not have a post release supervision order, to better inform their sentence progression and appropriate interventions. The intention of this focussed approach is to assist young persons committed to custody to become socially reintegrated and to live law-abiding and purposeful lives on their release to the community. The Irish Probation Service have recently joined this initiative by engaging in assessments with those 18-24 year olds who do have post release supervision orders. The development of programmes for prisoners forms a central part of the Irish Prison Service Three Year Strategic Plan 2016 - 2018. There is a clear commitment in the Strategy to enhance sentence planning through Integrated Sentence Management and the delivery of prison based rehabilitative programmes.
Do you have any social reintegration programs addressed to inmates which were developed in collaboration with the academic environment?Education in prisons is delivered in partnership between the Education and Training Boards funded by the Ministry of Education and the Irish Prison Service with a focus on providing education which is quality assured, student centred and which facilitates lifelong learning. A broad and flexible curriculum is provided which ranges from basic literacy classes and peer led tutoring to Open University. Other areas where there has been significant progress in prison education are in physical education, in the provision for higher education, in the arts and in preparing people for release, through the provision of accredited pre-release courses. A top priority for the Irish Prison Service is ensuring help for those with reading and writing problems and to this end, peer mentoring programmes are currently active in all of our prisons. In addition, the work and training service aims to make available, work, work-training and other purposeful activities to all those in custody. Training activities are chosen to give as much variety as possible and also to give opportunities for those in prison to acquire practical skills which will help them secure employment on release. Work Training Officers have been appointed and assigned to areas such as catering, laundry, industrial cleaning, industrial skills and gym. The Irish Prison Service has also been expanding the number of accredited courses and opportunities available to prisoners in Work Training in recent years. Enhanced partnership arrangements with accrediting bodies such as City and Guilds and the Guild of Cleaners and Launderers and the centralising of coordination and quality assurance arrangements have enabled the prison service to extend the number of available courses and activities with certification.
In Latvian Prison system two scientifically based resocialisation programmes are being implemented: "EQUIP" and “Cognitive Skills”.
Do you have any social reintegration programs addressed to inmates which were developed in collaboration with the academic environment?“EQUIP” is an imprisonment place resocialisation programme. Goal: motivate and educate youths with antisocial behaviour to think and act responsibly. Originally the programme was developed in English in USA 1955, its authors – John Gibbs, Bad Potter and Arnold P. Goldstein (The EQUIP Program: Teaching Youth to Think and Act Responsibly; Gibbs, Potter, & Goldstein, 1995). In Latvia this programme was adopted by translating it to Latvian. Implementation started in 2009. According with the prerequisites of the programme implementation, youths are involved in this programme. “Cognitive Skills” is an imprisonment place resocialisation programme that focuses on reforming impulsive, egocentric, illogical and inflexible thought process and educates the participants to stop and think before acting or reacting, to consider the consequences of their behaviour, to evaluate alternatives, to react to interpersonal problems and to comprehend the impact of their behaviour on other people (including their victims). The goal of the programme is to encourage the cognitive and emotional development of offenders and to teach specific cognitive skills to them. Originally programme was developed in Canada 1985, its authors – Robert R. Ross, Elizabeth A. Fabiano and Roslynn Ross (Reasoning and Rehabilitation: A Handbook for Teaching Cognitive Skills; Ross, Fabiano, & Ross, 1985), its supplemented edition was published in 200, its authors – Robert R. Ross, Elizabeth A. Fabiano, Roslynn Ross & Frank J. Porporino). In Latvia this programme was adopted by translating it to Latvian. Implementation started in 2006.
SPS has a suite of offender behaviour programmes to address various risks and needs: Moving Forward Making Changes (Sexual Offending) Constructs (Cognitive Behaviour) Youth Justice Programme (YJP) Pathways: Routes to Recovery and Desistance (Substance Misuse) Ultimate Self Programme (USP): women finding their own way Controlling Anger Regulating Emotions (CARE) Self-Change Programme (Violence) Short Term Intervention Programme
Do you have any social reintegration programs addressed to inmates which were developed in collaboration with the academic environment?These programmes are predicated on academic research evidence.
Yes, the follow scientifically validated programs in the field of prisoners social Reintegration are implemented in our prison System: - Evaluation of the therapy in the Social Therapeutic Department (SothA) of the country M-V with the conception in the prison - Nationwide "Cross-border evaluation of juvenile detention" - Nationwide Evaluation of Electronic Residence Surveillance - Evaluation of the Reasoning & Rehabilitation (R & R) program in prison in Mecklenburg-Western Pomernia These are projects for evaluation in the areas of inpatient and outpatient criminal work as well as the scientific monitoring of individual therapeutic measures
Do you have any social reintegration programs addressed to inmates which were developed in collaboration with the academic environment?see above
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In the conditions of the prison service of the Slovak Republic, an analytical-research unit – Applied Penological Research Section was established on 1 January 2016. Applied penological research through the theoretical and research activities contributes, among others, also to creation and formulation of the criminal policy in the terms of its functionality and subsequently also to creation of various research projects. In addition to its individual activities, the Applied Penological Research Section cooperates also with universities and other external institutions in the field of projects dealing with prison issues mainly because of the reason that the prison area, especially the execution of the prison sentence is characterized by interdisciplinary character. Therefore, while fulfilling research intentions, the Corps of Prison and Court Guard (hereinafter only “the Corps”) must closely cooperate especially with faculties and departments in the field of psychology, criminology, sociology, further with central bodies of the state administration, the courts and prosecution and with other foreign organisations. The mentioned cooperation with the stated institutions and schools is formally carried out through the conclusion of the general cooperation agreements. The main content of the agreements in the research field is especially the determination of the particular participation in the project intentions. An immanent part of the agreements is at the same time the determination of the forms of Corps´ activities in relation to the academic environment (e.g. lectures, mutual discussions with students on the prison topic), the possibility of joint organization of scientific events such as conferences, symposiums and the determination of the topics of the final works of university studies to which the Corps grants an approval to research activities within the Corps.
Do you have any social reintegration programs addressed to inmates which were developed in collaboration with the academic environment?In line with the Conception of the Applied Penological Research Section, we also focus on areas related to the social reintegration of inmates, in particular in the field of recidivism, risk of social failure and resocialisation and education programs, within which are addressed the various research projects. One of them is a research project called “Risk Assessment of the Social Failure”. The main aim of this project is a modification of the currently valid and in practise used tool “Risk Assessment of the Social Failure”. Another project is an Analysis of the Penological Recidivism Factors of the Sentenced Persons after Granting the Amnesty. The point of this project is to discover the main grounds of recidivist inmates in terms of negative reintegration into society. The purpose of resocialisation and education programs is to influence the decision making of the offender of crimes in such way so the causes, conditions or opportunities to re-commiting of the crime which he/she had already committed, along with imposed punishment, were removed. In terms of resocialisation and educational programs, our goal is to focus on special groups of inmates which also correspond to our research intentions in the form of analysis of the policy and programs related to work with offenders using drugs in the criminal justice system and the work with offenders committed violent crimes against women.
Yes, programs are validated in Europe (not in our country).
Do you have any social reintegration programs addressed to inmates which were developed in collaboration with the academic environment?No