Activating civil society interventions to address structural problems of prison systems in Europe

ended

The action aims to increase the role of civil society and lawyers in addressing the structural problems of prison systems in Europe and promoting the social rehabilitation of prisoners through more effective and human rights compliant sentence adjustment mechanisms. (1) The project will enable a better coordination of CSO and practitioners specialising on prison issues, thereby allowing them to inform the work of relevant bodies both at EU and CoE levels – where they are still under-represented. Members of the network will be regularly informed of advocacy opportunities on prison policies. The network will submit analytical, problem-solving-oriented papers to European bodies framing prison policies. (2) Through regular legal monitoring, the action will promote prison standards compliant with the European Charter, including the right to an effective remedy, a cornerstone of the protection of prisoners’ rights. Regular information notes on legal trends in prison law at European (CJEU, ECtHR) and domestic levels will be disseminated in their national language to CSOs, NPMs, Bars, prison officials, judges, etc. (3) Through a research into sentence adjustment mechanisms in six selected EU countries and Ukraine the project will promote at national level most effective models and good practices as regard systems of sentence-adjustment among national law practitioners, and at EU level the harmonisation of mechanisms of sentence ajustments conducive to the social rehabilitation of prisoners It will also assess the impact of disparities in national legal frameworks and practices in this area on judicial cooperation in criminal matters. (4) Finally, EPLN will organise a conference to disseminate the findings of the research carried out in 2022-2023 on European interventions into structural problems in prison, and foster a European dialogue among key stakeholders for further interventions to effectively address structural problems.