The Regional Conference gathered prison authorities and prison practitioners from the Western Balkans, who agreed on the need to further enhance collaboration among the prison systems in the region. The conference initiated an exchange of good practices on addressing the issue of radicalisation in prisons and rehabilitation programmes for violent extremists.

The participants discussed and shared ideas on strategies on combatting radicalisation in prisons with focus on the need for developing specific screening and assessment tools, intervention and treatment plans, training of prison staff and inter-agency cooperation. Joint conclusions adopted at the closing of the conference will serve as a basis for the development of future regional cooperation on radicalisation in prisons.

The Regional Conference was held in Skopje on 3 and 4 October 2018. Besides prison authorities, the conference was attended by Council of Europe and RAN experts and representatives from EU delegations and relevant international organisations, such as the OSCE and UNODC.

The conference was organised within the “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey” programmatic framework, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.