Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan visits Penitentiary Service to discuss activities planned for the first quarter of 2023

17/01/2023

Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan and Deputy Minister Levon Balyan visited the Central Body of the Penitentiary Service to discuss the activities planned in the first quarter of 2023.

Minister Grigor Minasyan emphasised that in order to improve the situation in the penitentiary sector and to ensure ongoing development of the sector, the main goal will be to introduce the principles of restorative justice in the area of criminal punishments, abolish the criminal sub-culture and prevent recidivism, which is enshrined by the 2019-2023 Strategy on the Penitentiary and Probation Sectors.

Grigor Minasyan stressed that it is necessary to pay a special attention to improvement of the conditions for confinement of adults, juveniles deprived of liberty and the conditions for medical aid and services that are provided to them.

Touching upon improvement of the personnel policy, the Minister attached importance to proper implementation of the process of performance evaluation within penitentiary institutions.

In particular, it is envisaged to introduce a mechanism for attestation of officers of the Penitentiary Service (except for officers of the security management subdivision to be established within penitentiary institutions) and obtaining of the right to receive additional payment on the basis of that.

It is proposed to establish, through combination of the functions of external protection and ensuring of security being carried out by penitentiary institutions, a new subdivision, that is to say, the security management subdivision in which only citizens having passed the relevant training courses and having gained the necessary professional skills and knowledge will be engaged.

It is envisaged to engage, in the initial period, new specialists in the "Armavir" Penitentiary Institution with the example of introduction of the Patrol Service in the Police, and this will be followed by the ongoing reforms aimed at engaging more trained specialists in the other penitentiary institutions. The objective of these reforms is to engage and retain qualified personnel in the Penitentiary Service, as well as significantly improve the conditions for remuneration of the officers.

During the discussion, Head of the Penitentiary Service, Major-General Sergey Atomyan presented the future actions in the sector.

Both parties attached importance to the implementation of activities for construction of a new penitentiary institution and underscored its urgency.