Newsletter
May 2020
COVID-19
Covid-19 Collection of regulations and protocols
On the EuroPris website we created a  dedicated page  on which we continue to gather and share all regulations, protocols and approaches that European Prison Services and related organisations have drafted or taken in order to deal with the Covid-19 virus. The page is updated every day. Currently, 28 jurisdictions have shared their information. If you have information to add to this page, please mail  secretariat@europris.org .
Covid-19 EuroPris interviews
The impact of Covid-19 on the prison community goes beyond regulations and protocols. The crisis affects people on a deep personal level and changes their daily lives. EuroPris collects human stories, to share in our network. We hope the sharing of experiences will contribute to making people feel connected. Would you like to share your story? Please send an e-mail to  Friederycke Haijer  to arrange for a telephone conversation.
Femke Hofstee-van der Meulen
EuroPris spoke with Femke Hofstee-van der Meulen. She is deputy director of the largest prison of the Netherlands in Alphen aan den Rijn, which has the capacity to house more than 1.000 prisoners. She speaks about the fine balance she needed to maintain as a prison manager in the past two months: preventing the virus to spread in the prison, while maintaining peace among the prisoners and keeping staff motivated. She also looks ahead at what we can learn from this crisis.

Read the full interview here .
Covid-19: Other prison related news
Children of Prisoners (COPE)
Children of Prisoners Europe (COPE) published a newsletter with a collection of good practices on how children and families of prisoners are supported during COVID-19. It aims to highlight positive, human responses, often simple ways in which individuals, organisations and states across Europe are working to promote respect and dignity, to foster communication and solidarity, and to help ensure well-being among children and their parent in prison.  Click here to access the COPE newsletter .  
On 26 May COPE will host a webinar ‘Keeping Children Connected When a Parent Is in Prison: COVID-19 and beyond’. For further information,  click here.
EPTA: training prison staff during the COVID-19 crisis
The French National Correctional Administration Academy (ENAP) sent out a query on staff training during the COVID-19 crisis to the European Penitentiary Training Academies Network (EPTA). Some academies report they have suspended their courses until summer, others continue working from home, some continued their training in the institute. Those waiting for the doors to open are preparing to take special measures in terms of hygiene and rearranging classrooms. This unique situation has pushed many academies to become technologically more advanced, academies use e-learning platforms such as Moodle, Optima, Canvas and Big Blue Button.

EPEA
EPEA is offering webinars and has created a special webpage dedicated to sharing information from a wide range of European countries on how education from a safe distance can be made possible in prisons,  click here to consult their page.
Covid-19: Impact on EuroPris upcoming events
At the EuroPris secretariat we are closely following the developments around COVID-19. Starting point for our events and activities is the official governmental health advice of the country where the event is organized. We will make adjustments and inform participants when necessary. Please consult our website for the latest information about our other events.
3 rd Correctional Research Symposium - Rescheduled
The 3 rd  International Correctional Research Symposium, under the title "Motivation and well-being of correctional staff: How they matter and what can we do about it?", was scheduled to take place in Porto on 12-14 May. The symposium has been postponed until  2-4 March 2021.   

To read further about the event, proceed to the CRS website . 
9th EuroPris Annual General Meeting - Save the date
The EuroPris Annual General Meeting and conference was scheduled to take place in Dublin on the 8 th  of June. It has been rescheduled to take place in the morning of 9 November 2020 in Strasbourg, followed by the 25th Council of Europe Conference of Prison and Probation Directors on  9-10 November 2020.

For more information and details, please click  here .
CJPE Summer Course - Rescheduled & Webinar
The Summer Course, jointly organized with the Criminal Justice Platform Europe, has been postponed until July 2021. More information will follow later. In the mean time, the organizers are planning to host webinars on the topic of responses to sexual violence on the original dates:  7-9 July 2020 . Details will be announced on our website soon. 
Calls for Papers autumn & winter 2020
We know that making plans is difficult right now, but we like to think positively ahead and schedule activities for the second half of the year. If the situation in autumn is still restricting travels in Europe, we will not put workshop participants at risk, and we will either further postpone the event and/or propose alternative ways to sharing knowledge. This could be by organising virtual conferences/webinars. We encourage the submission of your abstracts for the below events, so they can be used for either personal or digital presentations.
ICT Workshop
The 5th EuroPris workshop on ICT in prisons is planned to take part in Vienna, Austria from 29 September – 1 October 2020 with the possibility to digitally join the workshop for those that will not be able to travel. Topics will include digital services for staff and inmates, artificial intelligence, drones, business intelligence, national cloud solutions, use of biometrics and more. For more information and a full list of topics please  click here .
The deadline for the submission of papers has been extended until 15 th  June.
European Prison Regime Forum
The European Prison Regime Forum will take place in autumn/winter 2020 (exact date & location TBD). For over 20 years, the European Prison Regime Forum has brought together practitioners, NGOs and academics to speak about prison work. The traditional focus on labor has already been expanded to vocational training and will this year also include sports. EuroPris is seeking papers for presentations in two streams: Stream I: Future-proof prison labor & vocational training and Stream II: Prison sports (papers and market place) .

For more information on the event and full list of topics, please  click here . The deadline for submitting abstracts is 1 June 2020.
Highlights from EuroPris Knowledge Management System
EuroPris receives queries from member countries every week, and in this section we will highlight several KMS reports from the last months. Click on the link to view each KMS report:



Upcoming Events
ICT Workshop
29 September - 1 October 2020 Vienna, Austria ( Read more)

9th EuroPris Annual General Meeting - Rescheduled
9 November 2020 Strasbourg, France ( Read more)

The 3rd International Correctional Research Symposium -
Management and well-being of correctional staff - Rescheduled
2-4 March 2021 ( Read more )

International Criminal Justice Platform - Summer Course -
Responses to sexual violence - Rescheduled
7-9 July 2021 - Barcelona, Spain ( Read more)
Document Library
  1. Interagency Cooperation Workshop Report - View report here
  2. Real Estate and Logistics Workshop Report - View report here
  3. Review of European Prison Education Policy and Council of Europe Recommendation (89) 12 on Education in Prison - View report here
  4. Information Leaflet on processing prisoner transfers within Europe - View here
  5. RAN/EuroPris Staff Training Collection (2018) - View collection here
  6. Updated State of Play: EU Framework Decisions 909; 947; 829;
  7. Competent Authorities for Framework Decisions 2008/909/JHA, 2008/947/JHA and 2009/829/JHA;
  8. Country factsheets on prison sentence execution - View here
  9. Designing for Rehabilitation Report - View report here
European Organisation of Prison and Correctional Services (EUROPRIS)
EuroPris
P.O. Box 13635
2501 EP The Hague
Netherlands