On October 13, 2021, The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Justice Jānis Bordāns visited the Olaine Prison.
During the visit, J. Bordāns assessed the readiness of the Latvian Prison Administration to provide medical services in the conditions of Covid-19, as well as the resocialization programs implemented in the Addiction Centre and the working conditions of the personnel. During the five years of its existence, a total of 550 prisoners have been involved in the addiction reduction programs implemented by the Addiction Centre. The approach to sentencing introduced in the Addiction Centre is to some extent a model for the entire prison system - how modern methods and a conceptual new approach can be used to enforce sentence execution effectively and purposefully.
J.Bordāns: “The results of the work of the Addiction Centre confirm that the state has successfully invested funds in the creation of new and appropriate infrastructure to help prisoners get rid of addictions. We are ready to provide a conceptually new form of sentence execution. Seeing what has been done in the Olaine Prison, I am convinced that the prison system is ready to work in accordance with modern requirements. Modern resocialization programs, safe and adequate infrastructure are an important precondition for public security, so that convicted persons can fully return to their families, children, work and live their life to the fullest.
The main task is to ensure thatas few people as possible break the law and go to prison. The positive practice established in Olaine Prison shows that resocialization work with prisoners is effective especially in a new, safe and suitable infrastructure. Therefore, the establishment of the new prison in Liepāja is an important public security interest and it is the way to a safer society.
During the conversation, general Ilona Spure, Director General of the Latvian Prison Administration, and Dmitrijs Kalins, Head of Olaine Prison, also informed the Minister about the development of the prison infrastructure. Currently, with the co-financing of the Norway Grants, a new stage of infrastructure development has been started in the territory of Olaine Prison, ensuring the creation of a full-fledged staff traineeship practice place - by building the Training Centre premises and also the open prison block.
Olaine Prison is becoming a multidisciplinary institution in the penitentiary sector, which not only executes court-imposed sentences, but also provides integrated resocialization and medical services.
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You can learn more about the Norway Grants 2014-2021 period programme by visiting www.norwaygrants.lv
The Latvian Prison Administration project "Establishment of Training centre infrastructure and model prison blocks for training opportunities in the Olaine prison territory" No. 1-6.4/2-2019 is implemented within the framework of the Norway Grants 2014–2021 period programme "Correctional Services".