The third regional meeting on rehabilitation of violent extremist prisoners (VEPs) and their disengagement from violence took place on 13-14 October 2021, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The focus of this meeting was to provide a forum to prison authorities and practitioners from all six Horizontal Facility Beneficiaries from the Western Balkans to continue the successful exchanges of good practices and lessons learned, with the aim to further enhance their capacities to implement rehabilitation programmes and intervention plans for VEPs.
The piloting of the VEP-specific programmes throughout the region was in the heart of the discussions, with reflections on the first results, practical challenges and the way forward towards national roll-out and sustainability. All the participants agreed on the importance of ensuring proper pre-conditions for the pilot phase that aims to test the applicability of the programme within the respective prison context, as well as on the need for more training on process skills for the multi-disciplinary prison teams. The importance of ensuring holistic approach to disengagement was emphasized through the presentations of the experiences of BiH and Albania in establishing local multi-agency co-operation in support to VEPs rehabilitation and reintegration.
A total of 12 prison practitioners participated at the meeting, thus contributing to the lively discussions facilitated by two Council of Europe consultants, who will prepare a discussion paper based on the received input and the exchanges between the participants.
This activity was organised under the Regional action “Enhancing penitentiary capacities in addressing radicalisation in prisons in the Western Balkans”, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe within the “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022” and implemented by the Council of Europe.