The Council of Europe continues supporting the Azerbaijani prison system by aligning its legislative and regulatory framework with European standards.

Based on a review of the existing prison staff training curricula conducted in February 2020, an online meeting was held with national counterparts on 22-23 April 2021 in order to develop a specialised training program for senior prison staff. The discussions were focused on challenges relating to education, psychological counselling, and social care available to prisoners in the current epidemiological context, behavioural typologies in the prison environment, and the Council of Europe and other international standards in this regard.

Representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the Penitentiary Service, the Main Medical Department, pilot prisons Nos. 1, 4 and 16, two Council of Europe international consultants as well as representatives of the WHO collaborating centre in Azerbaijan on tuberculosis in prisons, the EU and the CoE Secretariat participated in this meeting.

Based on the outcome of this first meeting, a training course for trainers (ToT) will be prepared and delivered to senior prison staff in May 2021.

This activity was organised by the European Union and Council of Europe Joint Project "Support to the Penitentiary Reform in Azerbaijan" (JP SPERA-2), which is designed to promote effective prison management, health care in prisons and assist the reintegration of ex-offenders.