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.