The successful completion of two Council of Europe Projects “Enhancing health care and human rights protection in prisons in Armenia” and “Support the scaling-up of the probation service in Armenia” has been marked with a closing conference on 29 November 2022.
The event brought together Project partners - Ministry of Justice, Probation Service, Penitentiary Medical Center - and other stakeholders to present the achieved results in the course of three years and reflect on the necessary future steps to further improve provision of health care and protection of human rights within the Penitentiary system and strengthening the Probation Service in Armenia.
During the opening remarks, Ms Martina Schmidt, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Yerevan, thanked all Project Partners for their active cooperation over the past years and stressed the Council of Europe commitment to further support the Government of Armenia within the new Action Plan for Armenia 2023-2026. Mr Denis Huber, Head of Police, Detention, Drugs and Addictions Department, highlighted the importance of continuous and sustainable reforms and expressed appreciation for the the commitment and dedicated work on the side of all involved parties. Ms Arpine Sargsyan, Deputy Minister of Justice thanked the Council of Europe for the continuous support focusing inter alia on the good results under the two projects on legislative revision on probation, on offenders ‘rehabilitation practical tools, as well as enhanced capacities of the Prison Medicine Centre. She showed readiness for the future cooperation in line with Armenia’s international commitments.
The Council of Europe project teams, representatives of stakeholder institutions together with the Council of Europe consultants presented the progress made as well as necessity for future interventions.
The results achieved in the area of penitentiary health care among others include improved documentation and reporting on indications of ill-treatment; corrected approach to self-harm and suicidal behaviour in prisons; improved methodology on detection of mental health disorders in prison facilities; improved prevention and control over the infections in prison health facilities; enhanced capacities of medical staff and introduction of telemedicine and electronic medical system.
The Probation Service has been supported through providing expertise on improving the regulatory framework, enhancing capacity of probation staff, improved risk and need assessment tool, introduction of e-probation management information system, new IT equipment in the amount of 50,615 EUR and general offending rehabilitation programme.
The cooperation between the Council of Europe and Armenia will continue within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Armenia 2023-2026
Projects were implemented by the Council of Europe and financed by the Action Plan for Armenia 2019 -2022.
Results and achievements in the field of probation:
Improvement of the role of probation - Probation staff capacities – Policy framework on probation – Reintegration of probationers – New working tools
Results and achievements in the field of healthcare:
Legislation framework – Publications – Penitentiary and security staff capacities – Material conditions – New training curricula, programmes, instruments