SPPRH - Strengthening the prison and probation reforms, provision of health care and treatment of patients in closed institutions in the Republic of Moldova

The Project “Strengthening the prison and probation reforms, provision of health care and treatment of patients in closed institutions in the Republic of Moldova” (“SPPRH Project”) with the duration of 36 months (March 2021 – February 2024) is funded through and is in line with the strategic priorities for co-operation as formulated in the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova for 2021-2024.

The Project builds on the achievements of the previous Council of Europe Action Plans for the Republic of Moldova, notably, results of the projects implemented between 2015 and 2020, namely, the Programme “Promoting a human rights compliant criminal justice system in the Republic of Moldova” (01 March 2018 – 28 February 2021) and the Project “Support of the Criminal Justice Reforms in the Republic of Moldova” (2015 – 2018). The Project is also focused on further consolidating the achievements of the Norwegian Mission of Rule of Law Advisers to Moldova (NORLAM) activities in country completed in June 2017.

The Project is aimed at supporting the enhancement of the prison management practices, the improvement of the quality of the provision of health care to inmates (including mental health care), supporting the probation in raising its profile, promoting the value of community sanctions and measures among all actors of the criminal justice system and strengthening of treatment programmes and protocols for patients in psychiatric establishments (including forensic patients).

Main intervention areas will cover policy/legal framework, institutional and practical implementation levels, and the expected results of this Project are the following:

Management of prisons is further improved to better support the prisoners’ rehabilitation: integrating modern prison management methodologies and tools, and further increasing the prison staff skills and knowledge on human rights of persons deprived of liberty;
Quality of the provision and organisation of health care services (including mental health care) for inmates are further enhanced in line with European standards: developing specialized tools, policies and improving the material medical conditions in prisons;
Strengthened institutional capacity of Probation Service and multidisciplinary co-operation with other actors through more effective implementation of community sanctions and measures in support of offenders’ social reintegration: strengthening the capacities of Probation to treat medium and high-risk offenders and fine-tuning the inter-institutional cooperation;
Strengthened treatment of patients in psychiatric establishments (including forensic patients) in line with European standards: enhancing the treatment programmes and protocols and improving the knowledge and skills of staff in applying them within multidisciplinary teams.

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Back Workshop on results of piloting of the reorganisation of tasks in three prisons in the Republic of Moldova

The results of the pilot initiative for the reorganization of tasks with a focus on dynamic security and social reintegration of inmates in three prisons – Prison no. 7 - Rusca (women), Prison no. 10 - Goian (juveniles) and Prison 1 - Taraclia (male adults) – were evaluated during the final workshop of the pilot programme.

As a result of the pilot initiative, the involved prisons developed and started the application of Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) on the social reintegration, security and sentence planning. In addition, the Manual on risks management is now approved and in use. The Guidelines on prison management were developed in order to ensure that the management of tasks and the processes put into action are in line with the objectives of the Action Plans (APs). The piloted management of tasks was organised and aligned to the revised organigrams, which contributed to the clarity of individual tasks and duties. It can be stated that inter-institutional cooperation was improved as the plans were built between pilot prisons and National Administration of Penitentiaries (NAP).

The workshop also served as a forum at which the follow-up recommendations for pilot prisons were discussed, as well as the roadmap for the NAP on how to extend these pilot initiatives to other prisons. The participants agreed on the need for further enhancing the organisational support and cooperation at NAP level; strengthening of the horizontal cooperation and the consolidation of inter-institutional relationships between pilot prisons and NAP; the extension of autonomy in decision making; the harmonization of further development of SOPs and policy documents with APs ethos; catalysing the implementation of new approaches into routine practice.

The assessment of results was carried out in close cooperation with representatives of NAP senior management and by Change Management Teams of NAP and pilot prisons, consisting of directors and deputy directors, and managers of various directorates, sections and services (human resources, security and penitentiary regime, social reintegration, evidence of detainees, safeguarding and escort, legal service, etc.). Representatives of peer prisons (from Chisinau, Rezina, Lipcani, Branesti and Bender), attended the workshop and evaluated the applicability of the AP philosophy in their prisons and the adaptations required for this purpose.

The workshop represents a final step of the piloting initiative conducted throughout 2020-2021 and launched under the auspices of the previous Council of Europe Programme on criminal justice (2018-2021), and of the Norwegian Mission of Rule of Law Advisers to Moldova (NORLAM) (2007-2017).

The activity was conducted online on 12 November 2021, under the auspices of the Project “Strengthening the prison and probation reforms, provision of health care and the treatment of patients in closed institutions in the Republic of Moldova”, financed through the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova (2021-2024) and implemented by the Council of Europe.

Moldova 18 November 2021