Workshop for the Monitoring Groups Conducing Oversight over Penitentiary Institutions

A workshop for the monitoring groups conducting oversight over penitentiary institutions was held in Georgia within the period of June 14-15 of 2018.

The two-day meeting discussions particularly targeted the issues regarding the criminal subcultures and non-official hierarchic problems of the prisoners in Armenia and Georgian prisons, the causes for their promotion and their solution opportunities, problems regarding the security in prisons and balancing of dignity, as well as the monitoring on self-harm, suicide attempts, death cases, vulnerable prisoners and rehabilitation services.

Hasmik Harutyunyan, legal expert of the “Protection of Rights without Borders” NGO, as well as being a member of the Public Oversight Group Conducting Monitoring in RA Penitentiary Institutions under the RA Ministry of Justice also participated in the above mentioned workshop.

Harutyunyan presented the outcomes of the Monitoring Group’s activities directed towards the security in the penitentiary institutions and on the balancing of the prisoners’ dignity. Particularly, the issues related to the application of disciplinary sanctioning in the penitentiaries, restraint measures, as well as the issues and challenges for ensuring more decent prison conditions for the prisoners were raised during the workshop by Hasmik Harutyunyan.