Meeting in the Ministry of Justice regarding prison education

Recidivism in Ukraine cannot rise above the 10% level. This is the goal set by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine for the next 5 years

Recidivism in Ukraine cannot rise above the 10% level. This is the goal set by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine for the next 5 years.

However, it remains a question of whether current conditions in prisons benefit this goal.

These topics were discussed during a round table at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, which was devoted to the issue of access to education in prisons.

Representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Administration of the State Criminal Enforcement Service of Ukraine, Probation in Ukraine, as well as non-governmental organizations working in penitentiary institutions participated in the meeting.

According to Oleh Torkunov, Deputy Chief of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, provision of quality educational services is perhaps the most important factor contributing to the societal reintegration of the person who shows the willingness for changes.

However, several obstacles are standing in this way.

For instance, as noted by Valeriy Kalivoshko, Head of Department of social, educational and psychological work with prisoners, there is a problem of underfunding:

"We cannot develop re-socialization measures, and that’s a problem. The law states that we should provide education for prisoners, but not every prison has such an opportunity. Of course, there is a human factor when it comes to motivation. We need to motivate prisoners to study so that they want to participate in all re-socialization activities. A person must realize that he/she needs it”

Oleksiy Zagrebelny, the head of FREE ZONE, shared his vision for solving this problem:

"It is difficult to make all the educational services for prisoners available, which are offered by the state to the free citizens. It is easier to emphasize bringing people in prison to the community service system. It makes sense: the community will be interested in ensuring that people who have committed a crime on their territory and remain on it after being released changed themselves and won’t commit any crimes. We need to provide opportunities in this regard. If vocational education in penitentiary institutions consists only in assembling of fire extinguishers that are produced only in colonies, then such skills will not be useful for a person in future. That is why we are talking about new forms of education, in particular, distance education"

Iryna Yakovets, First Deputy Director of the Probation Center, also emphasized the changing paradigm of education:

"In other countries (USA, Germany), an educational institution is interested in performing a particular social function by providing people who are serving sentences in institutions or being under probation access to education. This is a social mission. The needs of such people are taken into account and, if possible, they are allowed to use different forms of training, preferably distance education. Educational representatives visit institutions and conduct some pre-semester courses to motivate people. The Ministry of Justice will not resolve this issue. Education in prisons will not be a priority unless we influence the local authorities. We can make changes to the legislation and provide favourable conditions by obliging them to take these issues into account. It does not have to be formal education, it can be informal as well, since it is enough for our clients to be released with the belief: "I want to study further."

The importance of access to non-formal education, such as life skills courses, was emphasized by Oleg Smirnov, director of DVV International Ukraine. According to him, the convicted person needs to acquire communication skills, solving vital issues that may arise after release and so on.

"This is not just about secondary or vocational education, but a provision of flexibility skills should be also widely discussed, in these process, non-governmental organizations play a crucial role"

Considering this, it is important to develop a comprehensive program of training prisoners for release with a risk and needs assessment, as stated by Roman Drozd, Head of the CO “Light of Hope”.

According to him, this will help the state to achieve the goal of reducing the percentage of recidivism to 10%.

It is also necessary to work with social patronage entities, local authorities to join forces with the education department, the public, and penitentiary institutions.

In this way, we will be able to create comfortable conditions for quality education in prisons.

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