A Word from the President
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Nils Öberg, Director General of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service:
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Dear EuroPris Members,
"In the first EuroPris newsletter of 2018, I would like to wish you a happy new year and take the opportunity to reflect upon EuroPris’ recent activities and future possibilities.
2017 was a year full of progress and activities. EuroPris arranged a large number of workshops, expert meetings and conferences, some of them being jointly arranged together with other organisations. Collaborations were for example with CEP on a mental health workshop and a foreign nationals expert meeting and with ICPA and CEP on the Technology in Corrections conference. EuroPris started in 2017 two new events - the Correctional Research Conference co-organised with ICPA and the Summer Course in Barcelona, being a joint initiative with the Criminal Justice Platform. Both will see a second edition in 2018."
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Featured Article –
How to reintegrate juvenile violent extremist offenders?
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Children in so-called Islamic State territories play an important role in the organisation and are also used for suicide attacks, executions and fighting, say Liesbeth van der Heide and Jip Geenen, researchers at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. These children can be viewed both as victims as well as perpetrators; how can they be reintegrated into society?
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Radicalisation Workshop - Registration Open!
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EuroPris is organizing a closed door expert workshop on Radicalisation on
February 28 in Brussels, Belgium
. This workshop will be linked to a European Commission event with a similar focus. EuroPris will discuss latest developments in relation to dispersement or separation of radicalized prisoners; reintegration challenges for foreign fighters/returnees; and multi-agency cooperation and sharing of data. See link below for agenda, logistics and registration.
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Family relations workshop –
Save the Date
On
11 & 12 April
EuroPris is organizing a workshop on Family relations in Vienna. At the workshop the EuroPris expert group will present its work over the past two years that resulted in a comprehensive
Good Practice Collection
.
Next to this, speakers will be invited from other European jurisdictions to share their innovative work in the area of family relations, including: visiting facilities, community involvement, intervention programs, communication and staff training. Registration will open at the end of January and more information and a draft agenda will then be available on the EuroPris website.
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Correctional Research Symposium – Registration open!
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The 2
nd
edition of the Correctional Research Symposium will take place from
8-10 May
in Prague and is hosted by the Czech Prison Service. The Symposium is jointly organized by EuroPris and ICPA. Under the title “What is good Prison Research” presenters from all over the world will discuss issues like: how to build trust and cooperation between the academic community and Prison Services and how to combine and identify needs of academics and Prison Services. More information about the Symposium and the link to registrations can be found on
https://icpa.ca/crs2018/
.
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CJP Summer Course - Save the Date
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The Criminal Justice Platform Europe is organizing the second International Summer Course from
3-6 July
in Barcelona. This year the Course has the overarching theme ‘Radicalisation and Violent Extremist Offenders’. The Summer Course will be a combination of workshops, plenary sessions and field visits. The three parallel workshops will be attended by a mixture of participants with a background in prison, probation and restorative justice from a variety of European countries. Each workshop will have a specific focus for understanding and responding to radicalisation. For further information please see link below. Registration will open 12 February.
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Mental health – an urgent matter for Prison and Probation services
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In December EuroPris and CEP held a workshop on mental health issues in prison and probation. The workshop was hosted by the Irish Probation Service. Different models for meeting mental health needs were presented as well as specific topics like ethics in treatment, suicide prevention, intellectual disabilities and neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Workshop Report: prison work and vocational training in focus
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In November EuroPris organised the European Prison Regime Forum workshop in Rome, kindly hosted by the Italian Department of Penitentiary Administration. A number of topics were discussed, for example fiscal and tax benefits for hiring prisoners, how to build social capital to reduce re-entry barriers and arts approaches on education to increase the level of engagement.
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EC Conference on Radicalisation in Prisons
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On 27 February 2018, the European Commission is organizing a Conference on Radicalisation in prisons in Brussels. Participants to the conference will be
prison and probation experts, judges and prosecutors, international organisations, academics and relevant NGOs. Particular attention will be paid to the use of de-radicalisation, disengagement and rehabilitation programmes, risk assessment tools and alternatives to detention, in particular for juvenile offenders.
One participant per EU Member State
can register until
Thursday 25 January 2018
. The EC sent invitations with the registration link on 11 January to the national Prison Services.
For the provisional agenda and travel arrangements please see link below.
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Profiles in action: Corrections officers in United Nations Peace Operations
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From enhancing prison security to improving prison conditions in post-conflict countries, United Nations corrections officers are instrumental to the efforts of peace operations to build and sustain peace. This article highlights the work of two corrections officers working in hardship and challenging settings, contributing to the protection of civilians or reducing the threat to peace and security posed by violent extremism.
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Leadership training - main topic at the EPTA annual conference
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The Annual Conference of the Network of European Penitentiary Training Academies was held in September 2017 in Switzerland. 47 professionals from 20 countries spent two days discussing issues related to leadership training of penitentiary staff. The experts exchanged ideas on strategies for enhancing training courses, innovative teaching methods and crisis management.
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Prison design at its best? Storstrøm Prison in Denmark inaugurated
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Storstrøm prison is the second largest penitentiary in Denmark with 250 inmates. It is a high security prison built to provide the most humane conditions possible for such a facility. See for yourselves in the
press material here
.
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Vacancy: Counter Radicalisation
Programme Coordinator
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United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announce a vacancy for the position of a Programme Coordinator (Violent Extremism in Prisons), P-4, located in the Justice Section of UNODC, Division for Operations, in Vienna, Austria. The posting period will be until
31 January 2018
.
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Prison research - Postdoctoral positions at Trinity College Dublin
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Dr. Mary Rogan, associate professor at the Trinity College School of Law, is hiring three postdoctoral researchers for the oversight of prisons within the PRILA project (Prisons: the rule of law, accountability and rights).
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Prisoners' Children and Families/Evaluation of Invisible Walls
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A summary of the key findings of an independent evaluation of Invisible Walls Wales (IWW), aimed at maintaining and improving relationships between male prisoners and their children and families.
The overall conclusion was that IWW has been an exceptionally successful project, which has had a significant positive impact on the lives of the prisoners and families who participated, and has the potential to have a major effect nationally (and even internationally) on thinking, policy and practice in regard to the children and families of prisoners.
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Foreign Nationals in Prison
and
Probation
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The November expert group meeting in Brussels was held back to back with the final conference of the FORINER Project (below). Two new members were welcomed to the group, Tijs Bagchus from the Netherlands and Yannik McKenzie from England. The main focus in 2018 will be further work on the Manual on Good Practice for Working with Foreign Nationals in Prison and Probation.
Contributions of best practice for the manual are welcomed
,
please see here
. Also EuroPris plans together with CEP the 3
rd
FNPP Workshop
9-10 October 2018
in The Netherlands.
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Framework Decision 2008/909
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The EuroPris expert group on the transfer of foreign national prisoners under EC Framework Decision 909 will have their next meeting on 23 – 24 April 2018 in Brussels. Building on previous successful meetings, invitations have been sent to all EU Member States to enable experts to join together for a practical discussion and exchange of knowledge on transfers. Resources and previous meeting reports can be found on the FD909 pages of the
EuroPris website
.
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The Finnish Criminal Sanctions Agency kindly hosted the newly elected ICT expert group in Helsinki on 12-13 December.
At the meeting the experts discussed current ICT projects in their jurisdictions, decided to draft reports on Prisoner Education and Video conferencing and started preparations the next ICT workshop that will take place in
Stockholm on 22-24 May
.
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R2PRIS tools in final phase
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The implementation period of R2PRIS – Radicalisation in prisons project is now reaching its final phase
.
Main products will be a radicalisation screening tool and a training programme. The screening tool is a three dimensional risk assessment focusing on environmental, social and individual factors. The training programme will increase awareness among prison staff as well as abilities to manage tendencies of radicalisation.
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FORINER -
Final Dissemination Conference
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EuroPris was proud to be an associate partner in this Belgium led Erasmus+ Programme Project. The project studied a range of innovative arrangements across Europe to provide learning opportunities for European prisoners serving their sentence in other European countries. Various home country delivery options were studied through a number of pilot projects set-up by the project partners and others, to see how distance learning could be used to improve the educational and resettlement needs of European prisoners.
The pilot results as well as recommendations for European prison services and others can be found on the
FORINER Project website.
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Seminar - Rehabilitation and Alternative Sanctions for Radicalised Individuals
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Academy of European Law, ERA, arrange a series of seminars on countering terrorism. This seminar will be taking place on
8-9 March in Utrecht
, Netherlands. The seminar will address alternative probationary measures and reintegration into society as well as rehabilitation methods and programmes in relation to foreign fighters. Other topics will be supervision within the context of EU framework decisions, risk assessment of individuals and the role of the judiciary in disengagement, rehabilitation and de-radicalisation.
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European Commission Conference on Radicalisation in Prisons
27 February - Brussels, Belgium (
Read more
)
EuroPris Radicalisation Workshop
28 February - Brussels, Belgium (
Read more
)
ERA Seminar - Rehabilitation and Alternative Sanctions for Radicalised Individuals
8-9 March - Utrecht, Netherland (
Read more
)
EuroPris Family Relations Workshop
11-12 April - Vienna, Austria
International Correctional Research Symposium
8-10 May - Prague, Czech Republic (
Read more
)
EuroPris ICT Workshop
22-24 May - Stockholm, Sweden
EuroPris Annual General Meeting
18 June -
Jõhvi
, Estonia
CJP Summer Course
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1. Updated State of Play: EU Framework Decisions
909;
947;
829;
2009/829/JHA;
3. Information on Prison Conditions in EU Countries -
View here
9. Key Findings:
Prisoners' Children and Families/Evaluation of Invisible Walls
View here
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European Organisation of Prison and Correctional Services (EUROPRIS)
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EuroPris
P.O. Box 13635
2501 EP The Hague
Netherlands
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