Over 50 European Experts Highlight Romania as a Benchmark in the European Union for Their Progress in Improving Its Youth Justice System.
The Ministry of Justice of Romania, through the National Administration of Penitentiaries, in collaboration with Meridians International, European organization committed with the youth, co-organised in Bucharest, the first International Conference of Youth Justice with the motto: “Let’s walk, let’s talk together. Through the title and the symbol associated with the conference, the two partners proposed themselves to send a message of profound significance and social convergence.
Over the last few years, the pioneers of penal politics participated to the very necessary process of changing the paradigm in the organisational culture of the Romanian penitentiary system in what concerns the treatment of minors and young offenders.
Depending on the identified priorities, the two institutions intended to initiate a platform which would bring together the existing professional practices at the European level in order to reflect in a holistic and comprehensive manner over the legal and educational path of minors and youngsters sanctioned with freedom depriving or non-depriving measures. It was pointed out that the Romanian Government has begun a process of reorientation with reference to the the juvenile facilities, especially in Buzias and Craiova, where young people are and have always been protagonists and participants in the educative process, with specific educative programs and innovative integration systems. During the Conference, the participants could admire an exhibition of the development of the young’s work in these workshops.
The celebration of the first Conference has been a success in terms of attendance, with over 300 registered people, among participants and experts from the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Switzerland and Croatia, and where they have discussed which are the problems that young offenders with judicial measures have to face in Europe, and also knowing the reality of the member states of the European Union about these field. The Conference has been a framework, a meeting point to transfer knowledge and good practices, with the objective of building a common Europe in the legal and educative field and maintaining, consequently, a social balance.
The agenda of the conference can be accessed here.
The conference has been live streamed and it can be watched at: