A Regional Workshop “Criminal Justice Responses to Prison Overcrowding in Eastern Partnership Countries” took place on 22-23 June 2016, at the Radisson Blu Kiev Hotel in Kiev, Ukraine.

The Regional Workshop brought together high officials of the Ministries of Justice of Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine and Ministry of Corrections of Georgia with an aim of presenting and discussing draft strategies on implementation of the country specific recommendations defined by the study on preventing / combating prison overcrowding in Eastern Partnership countries. Additionally, the new guidelines of the CPT on living space per prisoner, draft White Paper on Prison Overcrowding of the Penological Council of the Council of Europe and recent case-law of the ECtHR on prison overcrowding were presented to the participants.

The Regional Workshop is a follow-up activity of the Regional Conference “Criminal Justice Responses to Prison Overcrowding in Eastern Partnership Countries” (February 2016, Tbilisi) and three country-specific round tables held in Yerevan, Kyiv and Chisinau in April 2016.

This Regional Workshop is part of larger programme on “Promoting penitentiary reforms (from a punitive to a rehabilitative approach)” which is implemented within the framework of the European Commission and Council of Europe Programmatic Cooperation Framework for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.