March-May 2024

With this compilation, the European Prison Litigation Network, its members and partners across Europe aim to inform national lawyers and civil society organisations about the most important legal developments on prison issues. We hope it enables you to better identify European trends and use them in your legal practice.
It covers 14 European Union Member States as well as Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the United Kingdom and Russia.

CONTENTS >> HEALTH, INSTRUMENTS OF RESTRAINT, MATERIAL CONDITIONS OF DETENTION, NGO/NHRI, PENAL LAW, PRISONS IN WARTIME, PRIVATE AND FAMILY LIFE, PROCEDURAL RIGHTS, REGIME, SENTENCE ADJUSTMENT, TECHNOLOGY, TORTURE & ILL-TREATMENT, TRANSFER, VOTING RIGHTS, WOMEN, WORK

HUNGARY ■ In March 2024, Debrecen Court of Appeal (Debreceni Ítélőtábla) ruled that the prison administration must provide assistance to visually impaired detainees, even in the absence of a specific request or complaint from them, for all aspects of their lives for which this assistance is required (meals, hygiene, transport, outdoor activities, participation in training, religious, cultural and other programmes, visits, etc.). The court found that failing to provide necessary accommodations for a prisoner in this situation violated their rights to human dignity, equal treatment, the protection of health, and private life (no. Pf.I.20.429/2023/7. delivered on 14 March 2024).
The case concerned a prisoner held in Szeged Strict and Medium Regime Prison, who was not provided with any assistance for his impairment. He was left utterly dependent on the goodwill of the other inmates, leading to public humiliation and subordination because he had to constantly ask for assistance, in breach of his right to human dignity. The lack of special measures taken by the prison administration, who treated the applicant as any other inmate, amounted to direct discrimination and breached the applicant’s right to equal treatment.
Furthermore, this situation inflicted an additional psychological burden on the plaintiff, violating his right to health. Additionally, as the applicant had to ask other detainees to read the letters received and write letters to his relative, his right to private life was also breached.
The court ordered the prison administration to pay HUF 2,000,000 (approximately EUR 5,100) as compensation for non-pecuniary damages.

LITHUANIA ■ In May 2024, the Parliament adopted amendments to the Code of the Execution of Sentences and the Law on Enforcement of Remand, with the aim to improve prisoners’ access to healthcare. Convicts and remand prisoners now have the possibility of receiving healthcare services in the closest private healthcare institutions, fully covered by the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund, if these services are not provided in the nearest state or municipal healthcare institution, or a specialised prison healthcare unit.
Prior to this, prisoners requiring healthcare services that were not provided in a specialised prison healthcare unit could only receive them in state or municipal healthcare institutions.

MOLDOVA ■ In March 2024, the government adopted a resolution approving new “Minimum Standards for Food, Substitution of Food Products, and Provision of Essential Hygiene Items for Individuals in Penitentiary Institutions”. The standards were prepared by the Ministry of Justice at the initiative of the National Prison Administration, with the support of the Council of Europe Office in Chișinău. According to the standards, the energy and nutritional value of daily food rations will account for needs based on gender, age, usual physical activity, physiological status (for women, e.g. pregnant women or breastfeeding mothers), health condition, and work performed.
The previous standards (defined in 2006, see Government Decision No. 609/2006), did not allow for the delivery of a varied diet and included only a limited range of products (e.g. bread was included in excessive quantities while some fresh fruits and vegetables were missing) or included products that are no longer considered suitable for a healthy diet (e.g. melted animal fat). Furthermore, it did not cover the specific needs of special categories of prisoners (e.g. prisoners with diabetes or obesity) as well as of infants and young children. In this respect, in 2021, the Ombudsman for Children’s Rights published a special report indicating that the standards then in force did not regulate the dietary standards for children up to the age of three and that standards established for children’s homes should apply. The new standards will enter into force on 1 January 2025.

POLAND ■ In May 2024, the Minister of Justice appointed a special representative to prepare the reform of the prison healthcare service. The special representative, Ms Marzena Ksel, is a doctor of medical sciences and former chief medical officer of the prison system, as well as a former member of the CPT representing Poland. The tasks of the representative include assessing the functioning of the prison healthcare service and drawing up initial outlines for the reform of healthcare for inmates. This process will be carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Family, Labor, and Social Policy, as well as the Commissioner for Human Rights.

PORTUGAL ■ In March 2024, the interministerial working group on health in places of deprivation of liberty presented its report, recommending the transfer of responsibility for prison healthcare from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Health – and therefore the integration of prison healthcare into the National Health Service. The working group had been set by order no. 4221/2023 of 5 April 2023 to draw up a proposal for an Operational Plan for Health in the Context of Deprivation of Liberty for 2023-2030.
The working group recommends that the transfer of responsibility for prison healthcare should involve a multidisciplinary team of health, justice, academic, labour and social security professionals, and that this change in governance should be continuously monitored through cost-benefit analyses.

ROMANIA ■ In March 2024, the Parliament approved a law ordering the creation of special units for the treatment of addiction to psychoactive substances in four educational and detention centres for minors and young adults. The degree of their addiction will be assessed by the centre’s doctor, who will also apply the treatment schemes used for the people concerned.

GERMANY ■ In May 2024, the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) rejected as inadmissible a prisoner’s complaint against the prison administration’s decision to allow him to leave the prison, under the supervision of prison officers, only with special handcuffs linking his wrist to the opposite ankle through the inside of his trousers (the so-called “Hamburg shackle”, Hamburger Fessel).
The applicant applied for prison leave to buy special clothing for his prison beekeeping project. In his complaint against the prison administration’s decision, the applicant submitted extracts from psychological/psychiatric reports, at least one of which stated that he should be allowed to go on leave without handcuffs.
The FCC argued that the applicant had not sufficiently demonstrated how this violated his constitutional rights and specifically how being handcuffed during prison leave constituted a breach of his rights. The court also ruled that prison administrations and courts are not bound by expert opinions, but must take them into account.
The FCC also indicated that supervised release in handcuffs can be a first step and that once it has been demonstrated through such release that there is no risk of absconding or reoffending, release without handcuffs should be considered as a next step. Cooperation with the prison authorities is not a necessary condition for being granted a prison leave without handcuffs, but it can be a criterion for assessing the trustworthiness or reliability of prisoners and thus the risk of escape or reoffending during such a leave, in order to try out future prison leaves with greater individual freedoms.

BELGIUM ■ On 4 March 2024, the prison population reached a new record of 12,379 inmates, exceeding the prison estate’s total capacity of 10,736. At this date, 250 prisoners were sleeping on mattresses on the floor.
In this context, the authorities have announced emergency measures such as increasing the prison capacity, organising forced returns of foreign prisoners without a residence permit, extending prison leaves (by allowing prisoners to spend one month out of two outside of prison), as well as specific measures for “internees” (individuals recognised as suffering from mental health issues) so that they are held in specialised facilities instead of prisons.
These measures were criticised by the Central Monitoring Council for Prisons (CCSP). The CCSP argued that extended prison leaves, due to their eligibility criteria, will concern only very few inmates (less than 2% of the prison population, approx. 200 prisoners). Furthermore, these leaves do not enable inmates to integrate into the labour market or engage in long-term training and therefore do not significantly support their resocialisation.
They also criticised the measures taken with regard to “internees” in specialised facilities (namely that they are not sent back to prison on the grounds of difficult behaviour or violation of specific conditions) because they will not reduce the number of “internees” held in prison but will simply prevent it from increasing. The CCSP recalls that 994 “internees” remain in prison (in breach of the ECtHR pilot judgment W. D. v. Belgium, no. 73548/13, 2016) and that the creation of three additional specialised centres was postponed to 2028-2029.
The forced return of foreign prisoners without a residence permit has also been criticised as a non-realistic measure that’s difficult to implement in practice and has a limited impact on prison overcrowding. The same goes for expansion of the prison estate, which, as reiterated repeatedly by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, is not a lasting solution.
Overcrowding remains a structural problem in Belgium despite the ECtHR quasi-pilot judgment Vasilescu v. Belgium, no. 64682/12, 2014. Overcrowding impacts all aspects of prisoners’ daily lives, as argued by the Belgian section of the International Prison Watch in its latest report on prisons in the country. The Bar association Advocaat.be noted that this is the result of decades of “lack of vision and investment” and called on the government to adopt measures with long-term effects (e.g. enhanced use of conditional release and alternatives to imprisonment, lesser use of pre-trial detention). Furthermore, in order to force the government to act (after several unsuccessful meetings with the Ministry of Justice), the French and German-speaking Bar associations Avocats.be has decided to enforce the fines imposed on the Belgian State as a result of its failure to comply with the judgments ordering it to reduce prison overcrowding and put an end to inhuman and degrading treatment within a specified period. The total accumulated amount of these fines is EUR 24 million.

FRANCE ■ In May 2024, following an armed attack on a prison convoy to break out a prisoner, which resulted in the murder of two prison guards, prison staff unions launched a general strike in the country. During the strikes, which lasted for three days, all visits (including with lawyers) and activities in prison were cancelled, and mail distribution was hampered. In some prisons, there was no access to showers, regular meals were not distributed, and garbage was not collected. In some cases, the provision of medical care was also suspended.
This situation echoes a judgment rendered by the ECtHR a few weeks earlier that concluded that the deterioration of the applicants’ detention conditions due to a prison strike amounted to a violation of Article 3 ECHR (Leroy and Others v. France, no. 32439/19, April 2024).
Prison staff trade unions and the government signed an agreement in early June 2024 (read the agreement and the detailed measures envisaged here).
One part of the agreement concerns equipping prison staff with more weapons (including long guns and automatic weapons), incapacitating bombs, heavy bullet-proof waistcoats and more powerful, secure cars (including unmarked vehicles). A second component involves securing prisons with anti-drone devices and telephone jammers and deploying drug dogs. A third component aims to reinforce security during escorts, to increase surveillance of prisoners considered “dangerous” (by increasing the frequency of searches and security transfers), and to limit their extractions (by encouraging visits by magistrates to prisons and videoconferencing for interrogations and medical visits). The agreement also provides for the launch of a “broad multidisciplinary consultation on prison overcrowding”.

MOLDOVA ■ In April 2024, the prison administration created a working group for changing the methodology for calculating prisons detention capacity. The working group was created after the NGO Promo-LEX Association published a report showing that Chișinău prison’s actual capacity had been overestimated by the authorities: a recalculation of the prison’s capacity in line with international standards raised the facility’s overcrowding from 131% to 198% (see our previous issue covering December 2023 – February 2024).

POLAND ■ In March 2024, the Commissioner for Human Rights received information from the Prison Service on the steps recently taken to improve prisoners’ material detention conditions by liquidating cells for more than 10 prisoners and equipping cells with partitioned sanitary areas in multioccupancy cells, in the application of the ECtHR judgment Szafrański v. Poland (no. 17249/12, 2015).
Concerning large multiple occupancy cells, the Prison Service informed the Commissioner that 355 of the 379 cells for more than 10 prisoners had been liquidated. The remaining 24 cells (two 11-person cells, one 15-person cell, and 21 16-person cells) are marked as out of use. As a result of the changes implemented, the capacity of the penitentiary system has been reduced by 679 places.
With regard to sanitary areas in multiple occupancy cells, the Prison Service informed the Commissioner that all but 140 of these cells are currently equipped with fully partitioned sanitary areas and that 56 should be equipped in 2024. However, 4 372 cells have sinks outside the partitioned sanitary area. Following the guidelines adopted by the Prison Service to ensure they are included in the sanitary area when cells are rebuilt, 376 cells should be properly equipped in 2024. The Prison Service also reported that while 18 prisons did not have individual shower cubicles in 2023, all should have them by the end of 2024.

BELGIUM ■ In April 2024, the Federal Parliament adopted a law that establishes implementation of the National Preventive Mechanism within the Federal Institute for Human Rights (FIRM-IFDH). The law was passed 19 years after the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) was signed by the government (24 October 2005).
This delay was criticised by civil society and academia (see for example this statement by the Human Rights League dated 26 June 2022). In practice, the FIRM-IFDH will collaborate with various bodies to monitor places of deprivation of liberty: the Central Monitoring Council for Prison for prison facilities, Myria (the Belgian Federal Migration Centre) for foreigner detention centres, and Committee P for places of deprivation of liberty under the jurisdiction of the police.
The FIRM-IFDH announced that it will not visit places of deprivation of liberty that fall under the competence of the Regions and Communities, such as public institutions for youth protection.

Also in Belgium, in May 2024, the Federal Institute for Human Rights (FIRM-IFDH), the Central Monitoring Council for Prisons, Myria (the Belgian Federal Migration Centre), Unia (Interfederal Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism) and the Service for Combating Poverty published a report on the rule of law in the country.
In the report, they point out that a number of major problems concerning respect for the rule of law had not been resolved by 2023, such as prison overcrowding, inadequate care for a growing number of internees (offenders suffering from mental health disorders) held in prison, and the inability of the Belgian authorities to enforce judgements.
Among their recommendations, they urge the Belgian state to increase the number of places available for internees in specialised or ordinary care facilities, stressing that under current conditions, prisons cannot be considered places of care. They also stress the importance of prisoners’ right to complain, as developed by the penitentiary law of 12 January 2005, which must be properly implemented and respected by the prison administration. The report notes in this respect that “a number of decisions by complaints commissions are slow to be implemented, or even, more worryingly, are ignored” (p. 21).

GEORGIA ■ In May 2024, the Parliament adopted a law “On Transparency of Foreign Influence”. This law targets media and civil society organisations (CSOs) receiving more than 20% of their non-commercial revenue from foreign or unidentified sources, labels them as “organisations pursuing the interests of a foreign power” and subjects them to new registration, reporting and public disclosure requirements. In case of non-compliance with these requirements, the entities concerned are subject to severe financial sanctions that could lead to their dissolution.
The organisations concerned are subject to special monitoring measures allowing the authorities to access any information from any individual or legal entity, including special categories of personal data. This potentially jeopardises the confidentiality of communication between advocates and their defendants.
As a result of this law, the work of CSOs defending prisoners’ rights could be compromised. The loss of financial resources would prevent these organisations from providing legal aid services in prison and from carrying out advocacy work aimed at impacting the country’s prison and penal policies. In addition, the access granted to the authorities to organisations’ data undermines the confidentiality of exchanges between CSOs and prisoners, exposing the latter to the risk of reprisals.
Recent reports from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and the Public Defender of Georgia highlight major deficiencies in prisoners’ access to care and protection against ill-treatment, contact with the outside world, as well as a deep influence of informal prisoner hierarchy.
Over 200 CSOs, including the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), have declared their refusal to register under this law.

PORTUGAL ■ In May 2024, the National Preventive Mechanism announced that it will publish short summary reports systematically on its most recent visits to places of deprivation of liberty. The summary reports of the 2023 visit contain an overview and a list of positive and negative aspects observed. This is a welcome change, as the NPM previously published its summary reports with considerable delay and their content was not very useful from a prison monitoring perspective.

ITALY ■ In April 2024, the Constitutional Court stated that the imposition of home detention as a substitute for prison detention (for sentences up to four years of imprisonment) is in line with the constitution, serves the objectives of the Italian criminal system, and can improve the functioning of the national judicial system (Constitutional Court num. 84/2024, dated 11 April 2024, published on 10 May 2024).
The case was brought by the Court of Appeal of Bologna, who asked whether the decree n. 150/2022 (known as “Riforma Cartabia”) fully respected the law constituting its legal basis. The Constitutional Court found no discrepancy between the decree and the law and found that the introduction of home detention as a substitute for prison detention is in line with Article 27 of the constitution, which concerns the general principles of criminal law, criminal procedures and criminal penalties.In particular, the court mentioned three positive effects the reform may have on the Italian legal system.
First, the possibility to impose home detention instead of a prison sentence for penalties of up to four years of imprisonment gives concrete expression to the principle that any restriction on individual freedom (even following a criminal conviction), must be limited to what is strictly necessary. Furthermore, home detention is better suited than prison detention to achieve the constitutional objective of re-educating offenders to live in accordance with the law.
Second, the use of specific procedures to request home detention (which are different from the ordinary trial procedures) may help reduce the number of criminal trials and the overall length of trials, and ultimately make the Italian justice system more efficient.
Third, since the imposition of home detention is immediately enforced, the reform enables an immediate judicial response to crime. This is not only a question of social security, but also an advantage for the accused, who can avoid the risk of facing the execution of a sentence several years after the crime has been committed.
Last, while incarceration often amounts to a complete sacrifice of individuality, the imposition of home detention can give concrete expression to the idea of a “punishment programme” (pena-programma) adjusting the execution of the sentence to the specific situation of the offender.

LITHUANIA ■ In April 2024, the Parliament adopted amendments to the Criminal Code that aim to improve the proportionality of sentences. Among other changes, the amendments abolish “average sentence rule” (which prevented courts from imposing a sentence below the average between the maximum and the minimum sentence foreseen for a given offence) and allow courts (based on the circumstances of the offence) to impose a minimum sentence (except for “serious” and “very serious” offences). In addition, courts can now defer the execution of a sentence, in whole or in part (except in the case of a very serious offence), where the execution of the sentence would be contrary to the principle of justice.
The definition of a recidivist has also been amended. The courts are now obliged to justify the decision to recognise a person as a recidivist, taking into account the offender’s personality, the nature of the offences committed, their seriousness, their interconnection and other circumstances of the case. However, the reform also provides that recidivists considered to be “dangerous” cannot benefit from the mechanism allowing offenders to be exempted from criminal liability on condition that a person (usually a parent or spouse) guarantees that they will not commit further offences (this exemption can be revoked by a court if the person commits a new offence within a given period).
The amendments also aim to focus juvenile justice on the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders by expanding the use of non-custodial sanctions and abolishing electronic monitoring for minors.
According to the Ministry of Justice, this reform should reduce the number of fixed-term custodial sentences to 15% of all sentences imposed by 2030 (compared to 21% in 2021 and 2022), and reduce the average length of sentences to five years by 2030 (compared to seven years in 2021), as well as the country’s incarceration rate to 140 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants by 2030 (compared to 158 in 2023 according to the figures provided by the Ministry). The new provisions will come into effect on 1 November 2024.

SPAIN ■ In May 2024, the Parliament’s Lower House adopted the Amnesty Organic Law for institutional, political and social normalisation in Catalonia. The law amnesties acts classified as crimes or conduct entailing administrative or accounting liability, related to the consultation held in Catalonia on 9 November 2014 and the referendum of 1 October 2017 (both declared unconstitutional in Constitutional Court rulings 31/2015, of 25 February 2015, and 114/2017 of 17 October 2017). These acts or conducts must have been carried out between 1 November 2011, when the events of the pro-independence process began to unfold, and 13 November 2023, when the legislative initiative for the amnesty law was launched.
The amnesty law covers not only the organisation and holding of the consultation and referendum, but also other acts related to them: for example, the participation in demonstrations to enable these consultations to be held or to oppose the prosecution or conviction of those responsible for them; assistance, collaboration, advice or representation of any kind; the provision of protection and security to those responsible for the consultations. Excluded from the scope of the law are “acts which by their purpose may be qualified as terrorism” according to the European directive 2017/541, acts that may have caused death, miscarriage or serious injury, or acts classified as torture or serious inhuman treatment.
As stated in its preamble, the aim of this law is to discontinue the execution of sentences and judicial proceedings affecting all persons (not only the leaders but also civil servants and ordinary citizens) who took part in the Catalonian independence process.
This amnesty is seen as a step toward generating a social, political and institutional context that serves as a basis for overcoming a political conflict. Adoption of the law gave rise to intense debate. After undergoing several amendments in the Lower House, the text was vetoed in the Upper House and was passed in the Lower House by 177 votes in favour (176 votes were needed to override the Upper House veto) and 172 votes against.
The law came into force on 11 June 2024. The law will likely be sent for review to the Constitutional Court and supranational jurisdictional bodies, such as the Court of Justice of the European Union.

RUSSIA ■ Recent figures show that the Russian government’s recruitment of prisoners from penal colonies into the Russian armed forces has contributed to an unprecedented drop in the prison population for the second year in a row (in 2023, the prison population decreased by 58,000 prisoners).
New reports suggest it has been extended to women’s colonies. In February 2024, the media reported the first verified case of recruitment by the Ministry of Defence from a correctional colony for women (IK-2 Leningrad Region).Other instances of recruitment in the colonies for women were later reported, including in IK-3 Ivanovo Region, IK-1 Vladmir Region, an unidentified colony for women in Perm Region, and IK-2 Mordovia Republic. In all cases, the Ministry of Defence recruiters offered inmates to join the medical personnel or troop squads. Despite a reportedly significant number of female prisoners who volunteered to join the armed forces, as of mid-April 2024, none of them actually left the colonies.
In May 2024, in order to increase the legal incentive for prisoners to join the army, the authorities also incorporated into the Penal Code the Law of 2023, which allows for the exemption of criminal responsibility and conditional release of prisoners who have joined the army (except for certain categories of crimes, such as sexual crimes, terrorism, the so-called “extremism” offences, etc.). The new provision also allows for the exemption from criminal liability of military personnel who have committed offences while on duty and the expungement of criminal records of offenders who have joined the army.

UKRAINE ■ In May 2024, a new law allows prisoners who meet the requirements for military service to be granted conditional early release to join the military during mobilisation or martial law. The process involves a medical fitness examination. If the result of the examination is positive, the prison administration submits a petition to the court within 24 hours, which must include the written consent of the commander of the military unit where the convicted person will serve. With the participation of the convicted person, the colony administration and the court, the administrative supervision of the released person is carried out by the commander of the military unit.
This early release scheme does not apply to prisoners convicted of serious crimes (crimes against national security, particularly serious corruption offences, sexual violence, terrorism-related crimes, attacks on law enforcement officers, intentional murder of two or more persons, or murder committed with particular cruelty). The law also provides for the liability of these persons for evading military service, namely imprisonment for a term of five to 10 years.
Former convicts joining the army through this scheme have limited rights compared to other servicemen: they do not have annual basic leave, cannot leave the territory of the medical facility where they are being treated, and must serve in separate units from former convicts. These discriminatory provisions have been criticised by human rights defenders.
By 27 June 2024, the courts had accepted 3,424 petitions in this category, and 3,171 people had arrived at the military unit.

BULGARIA ■ Two Bulgarian courts issued contradictory final decisions on whether prisoners’ money, received from their relatives for personal needs, may be seized by bailiffs to pay their court-ordered debts.
In May 2024, the Ruse Regional Court rejected an appeal by a prisoner against the actions of a bailiff aiming to seize all of his assets, including the money sent by his relatives to buy food and medicine. The court ruled that under the law the prison is obliged to meet all existential needs of the prisoner and therefore he does not need any money for this purpose. The bailiff in this case acts on behalf of the Ruse Municipality as creditor (decision no. 196,15 May 2024).
A month earlier, in April 2024, the Stara Zagora Regional Court found that the money, which the prison keeps for the prisoner in cash (a rare possibility in Bulgarian prisons) does not constitute assets against which the bailiff can enforce the debt as it is intended to meet their “essential needs”. In this case, the bailiff acts on behalf of the Ministry of Justice as creditor (decision no. 108, 9 April 2024).
The possibility of seizing all prisoners’ assets, including small sums sent by their relatives to meet personal needs, is a hotly debated issue. Although the Execution of Punishments and Pre-Trial Detention Act (EPPTDA) obliges the prisons to meet the basic needs of the prisoners, many such needs are not met in practice, including food and essential medicines, which the prisoners have to buy themselves. Many prisoners are targeted by bailiffs because of the debts they have towards state institutions or private parties (victims of crimes)..

GERMANY ■  In a decision published in March 2024, the Highest District Court of Bavaria ruled that although a prisoner has no right to be present when his cell is searched by prison authorities, he can request to be present and the prison administration must examine his request (BayObLG, decision of 30 Oct 2023, 203 StObWs 407/23, Strafverteidiger 2024, p. 174).
In doing so, the court, acting as a court of appeal, upheld the decision of the Sentence Enforcement Courts in Bavaria against the prison administration of Straubing prison.
The prison administration argued during the proceedings that the presence of a prisoner during cell searches, especially in high-security prisons, poses a threat to security, as prisoners could observe the search techniques and learn how to hide objects better (or tell other prisoners), or disrupt the search. The applicant justified his request by saying that in the past, during such searches, a document was lost and something had been damaged.
The Highest District Court of Bavaria ruled that no reasons had been given for refusing to allow the prisoner to be present when the cell was searched. There is no general rule that prisoners may not be present for security reasons, although the level of security may be taken into account. It is always a question of the individual case, e.g. considering whether prohibited objects were found in previous searches.

Also in Germany in a judgment published in March 2024, the Higher District Court of Celle (Lower Saxony) ruled that the prison administration must deliver letters to prisoners no later than the day after they arrive at the prison (OLG Celle, decision of 27 Nov 2023, 1 Ws 289723 (StrVollz), Strafverteidiger 2024, p. 174).
The applicant complained that a letter that arrived at the prison on a Saturday was delivered to him on the following Wednesday, and that two other letters that arrived on a Thursday were only delivered to him on the following Monday.
According to the Prison Law of Lower Saxony (Article 31), letters must be forwarded without undue delay (culpable, “unverzüglich”). This usually means that a letter must be forwarded on the next working day.  This does not rule out the possibility of letters being forwarded to the prisoner on a later day, but such a delay must be justified.
The prison administration argued that the first delay was due to “personnel or organisational reasons”, and that the delay of the other two letters was due to drug searches.
The court held that delays may not be “culpable” in exceptional circumstances, but not in cases where such circumstances have become commonplace and can be avoided by appropriate organisational measures. Concerning drug searches, the court noted that such searches usually take only seconds.

HUNGARY ■  Many reports confirm a positive change in visitation policies in prisons. The first change concerns the standard format of “group visits”, during which prisoners and their visitors talk to each other on either side of a large table separated by a Plexiglas partition. Ceiling-high partitions have been replaced with 50 cm high partitions (see earlier reports in the issue covering December 2023–February 2024). However, physical contact between detainees and their visitors is still prohibited. It is permitted at the beginning and at the end of each visit for prisoners in the most privileged categories under the new credit systems, which classifies prisoners on the basis of their behaviour and achievements in detention (see again the December 2023 – February 2024 issue).
This change in partitioning was made after the ECtHR ruled in October 2023 that the general use of these partitions (regardless of prisoners’ security classification) breached Article 8 ECHR. The Hungarian Helsinki Committee played a significant role in this change. Its campaign for ‘plexi-free’ visits reached the final of the 2024 Civic Awards Competition in the most successful advocacy project category.
The second change concerns family visits, reserved for prisoners with minor children, which take place without Plexiglas partition and during which physical contact is permitted. Recent reports indicate that following an amendment that came into force on 1 March 2024, more family visits are being allowed (compared with very few previously). Since this date, prisoners’ right to have one family visit every six months (with some security or disciplinary-related exceptions) is enshrined in the Penitentiary Code and has therefore legislative legal value (while family visits used to be regulated by orders of the prison administration, and no minimum entitlement was defined).
However, it is important to note that lower-level legislation still grants prisons the authority to deviate from the law and deny family visits on the basis of security assessment and any former disciplinary sanctions received by the inmate within a year (regardless of the fact that the disciplinary sanction was not related to visits). This raises questions about the amendment’s practical impact in the long term and underscores the need for careful monitoring and evaluation.

ITALY ■  In April 2024, the Constitutional Court ruled that when imposing restrictions on phone calls for prisoners condemned for mafia-related crimes, the prison administration must take into account the actual risk posed by the prisoner (and specifically whether they still have links with the criminal organisation they belonged to), and if they have children, these children’s right to have stable relations with their family members (Constitutional Court num. 85/2024, dated 16 April 2024, published on 13 May 2024).
The case concerned a prisoner of Padova prison condemned to a 30-year imprisonment sentence for six murders, several extortions and other mafia-related crimes. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he was allowed one phone call per day with his nine-year-old son. After the pandemic ended, the prison administration reinstated the restrictions applicable to prisoners sentenced to mafia-related crimes – two phone calls per week. The applicant also had the right to six video calls per month with his family (who lived in Campania, about 700 km away from Padova prison) as a substitute for family visits. The applicant challenged this decision before the Surveillance Judge (Magistrato di Sorveglianza, in charge of examining requests filed through the preventive remedy) and before the Constitutional Court.
The Constitutional Court ruled that in the present case, the applicant benefitted from regular prison leave, and all the competent authorities (local prosecutor’s office, national prosecutor’s office for counter mafia and counter terrorism, national police investigation department for counter mafia) found that there was no proof that he had a link with the criminal organisation he belonged to. Therefore, the court declared that there was no valid reason to impose on the applicant the same restrictions as those applying to prisoners condemned for mafia-related crimes and who have not collaborated with the justice system or who have maintained links with their criminal organisations.
The court also indicated that if a detainee has children, the administration must take into account not only the detainee’s right to maintain stable emotional relationships with them but also the children’s right to remain in contact, by all possible means, with their parents. The court emphasised that children’s right to maintain stable emotional relationships with their family members is recognised as a fundamental right by all national and international declarations on the rights of a child.

RUSSIA ■  In March 2024, amendments to the Pre-Trial Detention Act were adopted, increasing the family visits allowance in pre-trial detention centres for women detained with their minor children and for men who are single parents. Pre-trial detainees can currently ask an investigator or judge for up to two family visits per month; the amendments increase the number of visits to three, but do not address the problem of the unfettered discretion of judges and investigators in approving visits (see Mukhametov and Others v. Russia, no. 53404/18, 2021).

SPAIN ■  In April 2024, the Constitutional Court ruled that courts refusing to allow prisoners to receive visits with their minor children must comply with higher standards of reasoning and respect the best interests of the child (decision no. 53/2024, 8 April 2024).
The case concerned a prisoner who, in the context of divorce proceedings, had been deprived by the Court for Violence against Women of Madrid of the right to receive visits from his two minor daughters. His prison sentence was not related to gender-based or domestic violence. The decision was upheld by the Provincial Court of Madrid and the Supreme Court.
The Constitutional Court annulled these judgments and unanimously upheld the prisoner’s appeal (recurso de amparo) for infringement of his fundamental right to effective judicial protection (Article 24.1 of the Constitution) in conjunction with Article 39 of the Constitution (family and child protection) and Article 25.2 of the Constitution (which provides that prisoners shall enjoy fundamental rights, with the exception of those that are expressly limited by the content of the conviction, the meaning of the sentence and the penitentiary law, and have the right to the full development of their personality).
In its decision, the Constitutional Court recalled that prisoners’ right to visit, communicate with and maintain ties with their minor children cannot be restricted merely because the parent is imprisoned without justifying the existence of a real and concrete danger to the physical, mental or moral health of the minor. The Constitutional Court noted that in the present case, until the judgment from the Court for Violence against Women of Madrid, the prisoner’s minor children had visited him in prison since his admission, without opposition from the mother, and there had not been any problems. Furthermore, the court noted that a progressive visiting regime would be put in place once the father is released.
Further, the Constitutional Court recalled that judicial decisions affecting minors must comply with a higher standard of reasoning and be governed by the principle of the best interests of the child. In the present case, the minor children were not heard during the proceedings, despite the fact that the eldest of them was already eleven years old. The lack of a hearing contravenes constitutional doctrine and Article 9 of Organic Law 1/1996 on the legal protection of minors and has not been subject to a minimum justification by the judicial body.
In conclusion, all three courts’ decisions unreasonably considered the father’s imprisonment as grounds for depriving him of his visiting rights, without further motivating the adoption of such decision and without considering the protection of the best interests of the child.
The Constitutional Court declared the judicial decisions null and void and ordered the proceedings to be reinstated so that the competent judicial body, after taking new steps and in view of the circumstances, may issue a new judgment respecting the fundamental right that has been violated and complying with the requirements of an enhanced standard of reasoning in the best interests of the minors.

BELGIUM ■ In May 2024, the Liège Criminal Court ruled that by not extracting a detainee from prison so that he could attend the proceedings concerning him, the Belgian State had committed an irreparable breach of the rights of the defence.
The applicant, a foreign national in Belgium, had been sentenced to several terms of imprisonment for various offences. He had appealed against his conviction, but on four occasions the prison administration had failed to organise the extractions which would have enabled him to attend his trial. After his release (after four months’ detention), the applicant was summoned again but did not appear before the court.
The court, noting that the applicant’s repeated absence was “the inexplicable consequence of the failure of the authorities”, discontinued the proceedings.
In particular, the court emphasised that “the successive failures of the public authorities result in an irreparable breach of the rights of the defence and the right of the accused to a fair trial”, as guaranteed by Article 6 §1 of the ECHR.

BULGARIA ■ In April 2024, at least two administrative courts, acting as cassation courts, set standards for compensation for inhuman and degrading detention conditions suffered by prisoners.
Both the Sliven Administrative Court (decision no. 678/01.04.2024, not available online) and the Plovdiv Administrative Court (Decision No. 3456/15.04.2024) considered appeals against decisions of first-instance courts that had awarded low amounts of compensation.
Taking into account the ECtHR case law on the matter and the standard of living in Bulgaria, the courts ruled that the compensation should be around EUR 2-2.5 per day for a single violation and around EUR 4-5 per day for a multiple violation of Article 3 of the Convention.
This approach is simplistic (as is that of the ECtHR) because it does not consider the type and the gravity of the violation. The prisoner whose situation was reviewed by the Sliven court had spent three months in a pre-trial detention centre in a 6.6 sq.m. cell. with three other inmates, no window, no possibility for outdoor exercise and a bucket to relieve himself at night. According to the court, he was to receive the same amount of compensation (EUR 4 per day) as somebody who did not face such serious violations.

ITALY ■ In a decision published in March 2024, the Supreme Court of Cassation limited the possibility for judges examining complaints submitted through the domestic preventive remedy (Magistrati di Sorveglianza, Surveillance Judges) to order the prison administration to take specific measures to remedy the situation complained of (Court of Cassation num. 12362/24, dated 22 November 2023, published on 26 March 2024). Surveillance judges may only order measures when there is a serious breach of fundamental rights (relating e.g. to access to healthcare, access to education, or other rights that constitute the basis of human dignity).
The case concerned a prisoner detained in Spoleto prison (Perugia province) under the “hard prison regime” (carcere duro, also called “41bis” regime), who complained under the preventive remedy provided for in Article 35bis of the Penitentiary Law about the conditions of the prison barber service. In its decision, the Surveillance Judge of Perugia ordered a detailed list of measures for the prison administration to implement to improve these conditions within 60 days (installing an air purifying system, repairing the chair in which detainees sit, improving tools used by the barber, proper training for the barber, etc.).
The Supreme Court of Cassation annulled this decision, finding that the Supervisory Judge had exceeded the limits of its competence by interfering with decisions that were within the prison administration’s discretion. The court pointed out that life in prison involves certain limitations on the practical exercise of basic rights because the prison administration needs to take into account security related factors when organising even the simplest service (e.g. a barber service).
The court concluded that preventive remedies are provided as a form of protection for the fundamental rights of prisoners, and where there is no evidence of a serious violation of a fundamental right (such as health or access to education, rights that are at the root of human dignity), the definition of how services are organised in prison is up to the administration and Surveillance Judges have no power to issue any orders or other guidance.

POLAND ■ In April 2024, the Bar Association called on the authorities to amend the Executive Penal Code in order to improve several aspects of prisoners’ rights. First, the Bar Association argues that prisoners’ right to complain should be improved by changing how their complaints are handled by the prison authorities, who can reject them on the grounds that they are “manifestly ill-founded”.
Second, the Bar Association’s petition called for the right of prisoners to contact their legal representatives by telephone to be increased to once a day (from once a week at present).
Third, they demanded that equality of arms be ensured in the procedure for the suspension of the execution of a sentence, whereas at present the prosecutor has a dominant position (exclusive right to attend the prison court session, to lodge an objection with suspensive effect to the court’s decision to release a prisoner and to appeal against such court’s decision).
Fourth, they proposed reducing the minimum period after which life prisoners can be transferred from a close to a semi-open prison from 20 to 10 years.
Fifth, the Bar Association called for the repeal of the regulation that allows the prison administration to charge prisoners for using electrical devices in their cells (including televisions, radios or reading lamps). Under the current rules, prisoners must pay these fees even if they do not use a particular device.

AUSTRIA ■ In March 2024, the Court of Auditors published two reports covering the period 2018-2022: a report on judicial resocialisation measures as well as a follow-up report on the management and execution of sentences and measures.
The reports criticise the lack of work and education opportunities for prisoners, which play a crucial role in structuring their daily routines, promoting their reintegration, and creating a positive climate within the prison. The Court of Auditors noted that the number of hours worked per day did not increase over the audit period, stagnating at 3.16 hours of occupation per working day. In addition, of the 452 operational units and workshops (e.g. kitchen, bakery, metal workshops etc.), many closed between 2018 and 2022. The court also noted that prisoners have very few work and education opportunities during afternoons and weekends. The court recommends increasing work and educational opportunities. It recommends adopting a more comprehensive approach to restructuring and optimising operational units and adapting available education to the characteristics of the prison population by offering educational programmes to prisoners who have no prior education or knowledge of German.
Among other factors impacting prisoners’ resocialisation, the Court of Auditors criticised high prison occupancy rates (between 69% and 94%) and the shortage of prison staff (the number of applications to become a law enforcement officer decreased by a quarter between 2019 and 2022).
The Court of Audit recommends that the Ministry of Justice, in collaboration with universities, carry out an in-depth study into the effectiveness of the prison system, specific reintegration and resocialisation measures for prisoners, and the resocialisation of former prisoners.

LITHUANIA ■ In May 2024, the Parliament adopted amendments to the Code of the Execution of Sentences and to the Law on Enforcement of Remand, which added to the list of reasons for transferring a prisoner from an open prison to a semi-open prison the failure to return to the place of detention at the prescribed time without a valid reason.
Other reasons include not working or studying without valid reason, representing a danger to the staff of the place of detention or other people, escaping from the place of detention, and having been subject to disciplinary and/or administrative sanctions on three occasions while serving one’s sentence.

POLAND ■ In April 2024, the Prison Service provided information on the construction of a pilot penitentiary complex combining a living area for prisoners in the semi-open regime, a transition house for inmates preparing for reintegration, and production halls to provide work opportunities to prisoners.
The buildings are being constructed as part of the “Pilot Penitentiary Complexes” project (established under EEA and Norwegian grants), which aims to build four such complexes. The complexes are being created according to the ‘principle of normality’ which assumes that deprivation of liberty is a punishment in itself and that life in prison should be similar to life in society.

CZECH REPUBLIC ■ In April 2024, the Constitutional Court found that an ordinary court had failed to respect procedural safeguards by rejecting an application for sentence suspension on medical grounds (no. II. ÚS 197/24, 17 April 2024).
In the case at hand, the ordinary court having reviewed the applicant’s application based its decision on the prison administration’s reassurances that the prison hospital could provide the applicant with adequate healthcare, without examining the medical reports and expert examination which stated clearly that the applicant’s state of health was incompatible with his continued detention.
This case is not an isolated one: courts examining applications to suspend a sentence on medical grounds base their decision exclusively on the prison administration’s opinion regarding their ability to provide adequate healthcare, which is considered decisive evidence. As the prison administration regularly claims to be able to provide adequate care, requests for sentence suspension on this ground are overwhelmingly rejected. This method of considering such applications is widely criticised by professionals.
The Constitutional Court’s decision gives hope that the ordinary courts will change their practice and take into account the medical documents on file.

LITHUANIA ■ In May 2024, amendments to the Law on Probation gave extended powers to the Lithuanian Probation Service to modify the obligations imposed on probationers (obligation to participate in behaviour correction programmes, prohibition to go to certain places or to communicate with certain people).
First, the Lithuanian Probation Service can decide to exempt a prisoner on parole from such obligations. This decision should be made on a comprehensive assessment of the level of risk presented by the conditionally released prisoner, criminogenic factors, the circumstances of the offence for which the probation is being enforced, as well as the prisoner’s behaviour in detention and the impact of social rehabilitation measures during imprisonment.
Second, the amendments give the Lithuanian Probation Service the possibility to ask courts not only to modify the probationer’s conditions of probation but also to impose additional conditions if this has a positive impact on the probationer’s behaviour and/or contributes to securing the interests of the victim and to fulfilling the purpose of probation.
The amendments also set stricter conditions for the Lithuanian Probation Service to request courts to revoke probation. Before the amendments came into force, this was only possible if the probationer had committed administrative offences for which they have been subject to administrative penalties and/or measures or if they failed to comply with other obligations imposed by law, even if they had complied with the probation conditions. Since adoption of the amendments, the Probation Service can only request the revocation of the probation before a court if, during probation, it has identified an increase in the risk of the convicted person’s criminal behaviour or an increase in the risk of harm to others, and if there are sufficient reasons to believe that the objective of probation will not be achieved.

PORTUGAL ■ In April 2024, the Porto Court of Appeals reaffirmed that a conditional release should not be confused with the end of a prison sentence, emphasizing that it plays a crucial role in preparing the prisoner’s reintegration into society and is a normal stage in the execution of a prison sentence (case no. 697/23.3TXPRT-A.P1).
The court therefore quashed the decision of the first instance court rejecting the applicant’s application for conditional release, both because that first instance court had wrongly interpreted conditional release as the end of a prison sentence and because the applicant met all the legal requirements for conditional release.

RUSSIA ■ In May 2024, amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure were adopted, making decisions on the release of prisoners on medical grounds immediately enforceable (Federal Law no. 109-FZ of 29 May 2024). Previously, there was a 15-day appeal period against such decisions, during which no release was possible. The appeal procedure itself (often initiated by the prosecutors’ offices) could take a further four to six weeks, significantly delaying the release of seriously ill prisoners. The amendments therefore represent a long-needed improvement in the legal framework for medical release.

HUNGARY ■ In May 2024, the Hungarian Parliament amended data protection laws and related legislative instruments to allow for the use of technological innovations in Csenger “smart prison” (Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County) that is set to open at the end of September 2024. These laws were amended after the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information raised privacy concerns.
The prison will accommodate a total of 1,500 inmates. Systems incorporating artificial intelligence and other modern technologies will be an integral part of the new facility. For example, a video surveillance system with facial, sound and behavioural recognition will monitor inmates’ movements and alert prison staff to prohibited activity, people on the ground or any other critical situation.
Prisoners will be able to use wall-mounted computers (called “KIOSK”) available in each cell to manage their official administrative business within the penitentiary, such as submitting applications, checking their escrow account balance and viewing their daily schedule. Remote-controlled doors using facial recognition technology will allow inmates to move around the penitentiary unaccompanied by prison staff, provided that they adhere to their pre-set daily schedule. Prison staff and inmates will also wear a device similar to a smartwatch, which will be used for staff communication, as well as for monitoring the wearer’s vital functions and position in the penitentiary. For prisoners, the device will also serve as a personal authenticator when using the KIOSK computer. Lastly, a facial recognition system will be introduced to identify people entering the penitentiary, including visiting relatives or lawyers.

HUNGARY ■  In April 2024, Hungarian media reported that seven prison staff accused of having brutally beaten up a handcuffed detainee in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Remand Prison are on trial before a military court.
According to the 2022 indictment, the prisoner had requested medical assistance, after which the prison doctor and a staff member went to the prisoner’s cell. At some point, the detainee was restrained to carry out the medical examination. A scuffle ensued, during which the detainee (intentionally or not) struck a prison staff member.
Immediately after this incident, several other staff members went to the scene. They handcuffed the detainee and took him to the medical room, where he was severely beaten. Five staff members banged his head against the wall and kicked him while he was lying on the ground, unable to defend himself because he was handcuffed.
Five staff members were actively involved in the act of violence, causing serious injuries to the detainee. A female prison staff member and the duty captain were also present as witnesses. They failed to report the incident to the prison commander, ignoring their legal obligation to do so, which led to their prosecution.
The military prosecutor asked the court to sentence the most active participants in the violence to six years and six months imprisonment and one of the witnesses to suspended imprisonment. None of the defendants pleaded guilty at the preliminary hearing, so the criminal proceedings are continuing.

GERMANY ■ In a decision published in March 2024, Arnsberg Sentence Enforcement Court (North Rhine Westphalia) ordered that a prisoner who challenged his transfer from a North-Rhine-Westphalia prison to a prison in Rhineland-Palatinate must be returned to his initial place of detention (LG Arnsberg, decision of 17 Oct 2023, 2 StVK 1342/23 Vollz, Strafverteidiger 2024, p. 174). This transfer was ordered as a preventive measure pending a final decision on the merits of the case.
The transfer was based on an agreement, according to which once the preventive detention unit in the North-Rhine-Westphalia prison has reached its full capacity, any new prisoners allocated to it will be transferred to Rhineland-Palatinate, 180 km away. The agreement provides for this possibility only for five inmates above capacity.
The applicant was assigned to the preventive detention unit of North-Rhine-Westphalia prison after being detained there. He challenged his transfer to Rhineland-Palatinate, arguing that by remaining in the prison he could continue to work, receive visits (he was regularly visited by a volunteer), and maintain contact with his lawyer.
The court first found that the prison administration had erred by failing to exercise its discretionary power to transfer prisoners, particularly because it failed to consider the reasons in favour of the applicant and to weigh them against the interests of other inmates, especially one who had been allocated to the preventive detention unit at the same time. The arguments presented by the prison administration during the court proceedings were declared inadmissible, as such reasons must be presented at the time of the administrative decision.

BELGIUM ■ In April 2024, ahead of the European, federal, regional and municipal elections taking place in the country in 2024, the Central Monitoring Council for Prisons (CCSP) published an opinion in which it proposes measures to increase prisoners’ participation in elections. Although the automatic deprivation of voting rights for prisoners was abolished in 2009, voter turnout among prisoners remains very low. Although voting is compulsory in Belgium, the electoral code presumes that prisoners cannot take part in elections.

The CCSP is critical of the lack of measures to encourage voting among prisoners, pointing to problems such as inadequate information, unclear domiciliation and convocation procedures, and other practical obstacles (for example, the difficulty of transmitting proxies). To remedy these problems, the CCSP calls on the government to draw inspiration from other European countries (such as Croatia, Germany, France, Netherlands, Poland, and Spain) and, among other recommendations, to make online voting tools available, to ask the prison administration to organise information sessions and to authorise postal voting.

POLAND ■ In March 2024, the Commissioner for Human Rights appealed to the Director of the Prison Service to include international standards on women in prison (the Bangkok Rules, as well as standards set by the United Nations’ Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [SPT] and the Council of Europe’s European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment [CPT]) in the training programme of the Prison Service.
The Commissioner did so after noting a recent increase in the number of women in prison (3,813 as of January 2024, 32% more than in 2017), who remain nevertheless a minority within the prison population (5.11%, the highest proportion since 2009) – which bears the risk that their specific needs are overlooked. The Commissioner specifically mentioned the situation of incarcerated breastfeeding mothers.

SPAIN ■ In May 2024, the Ministry of Interior closed the women’s prison of Alcaldá de Guadaira (Seville). This prison was one of the three prison facilities exclusively for women prisoners in the country and the only one in Andalusia. The closure was implemented as part of a decision to convert this prison into a psychiatric hospital by 2025.
The 100 or so women who were detained in the prison were transferred to a special module within Seville 1 prison for men. As a result, they will serve their sentence in a smaller area, with fewer services available to them, as they will not be able to use the common areas of the prison in the same way as male prisoners. They will also have more difficulty accessing job offers (especially the better-paid jobs). In addition, the health services, which are already overwhelmed, are not sufficiently prepared to address their specific needs, particularly in terms of sexual and reproductive health services (for example, preparing for childbirth and taking into account their basic needs during pregnancy).

RUSSIA ■ According to figures disclosed by the Research Institute of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), analysed by the independent investigative media Verstka, prison labour is becoming a growing source of income for the Russian state budget.
In 2022-2023, the FSIN’s income grew by 20% compared to 2021-2022 (in 2023, the income was RUB 58.5 billion, approximately EUR 600 million). Around 85% of this came from the provision of services involving prisoners and the sale of goods produced by prisoners. The increase in income in 2023 was due to the growing number of state contracts: in 2023 the volume of goods produced by prisoners for the state increased by 30%. According to Russian human rights defenders, this could be linked to the growing number of state defence contracts, including the tailoring of military uniforms (which are reportedly produced by prisoners sentenced to the so-called “compulsory labour” and de facto leased by the FSIN to private companies).
Since 2020, amendments to the Russian Criminal Executive Code have given the FSIN the power to transfer people sentenced to “forced labour” to special correctional centres, on the basis of which private companies operate their production sites. Under the 2023 amendments, prisoners can now also be sent to work for small businesses.
In 2023, the FSIN reported 390 such centres operating across Russia, providing work for 42,000 prisoners. Half of them worked for private companies that had contracts with the FSIN: 42.8% for FSIN subsidiaries and 7.2% for companies owned by regional authorities. Prisoners were employed in a variety of production sectors, including bread, sewing, shoemaking, cardboard, furniture, metalwork, car assembly, lumbering and agricultural work. The average salary of prisoners in 2022 was RUB 7.2 thousand (about EUR 72). According to FSIN statistics, in 2023 a total of 132,000 prisoners were employed within the prison system or in FSIN subsidiaries. The Russian state budget for 2025-2027 estimates that the revenue from prison labour will be at least RUB 140 billion (EUR 1.45 billion), 0.4% of a declared budget of RUB 34 trillion (EUR 332.6 billion).

Funded by the European Union and the Robert Carr Fund. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Robert Carr Fund. Neither the European Union nor the Robert Carr Fund can be held responsible for them.