The Polish Government has embarked on a new policy that plans to release some 20,000 prisoners by granting early paroles, a measure that has caused controversy and legal doubts. The Deputy Minister of Justice, Maria Ejchartassured in an interview published yesterday that his goal is to reduce the number of prisoners by 20,000 inmates, since “Polish prisons are overcrowded.”
The Polish press also reported that, from the beginning of 2024 until the month of September, some 4,500 early paroles were granted, which will be more than 6,000 by the end of the year. The vice minister emphasized that “releases are legally justified” in all cases, and defended allowing inmates who meet the requirements to continue their resocialization outside of prison.
Several opposition parties, such as the ultra-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), which governed until December last year, have criticized these measures as “dangerous for society” and a “cause of social alarm.”
According to data from the Polish Penitentiary Service, at the end of October 2022 there were more than 72,000 prisoners in Poland, and in the same month of 2023 the figure already exceeded 75,000. The occupancy of the penitentiary units reached close to 93% in May of last yearand both the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Ombudsman have recently highlighted overcrowding in Polish prisons as a problem.
For its part, the Polish Ministry of Justice stated yesterday in a statement that “prison overcrowding is a problem that needs to be addressed” as soon as possible. The teacher Paweł Moczydłowskiformer head of the Penitentiary Service, who collaborated in the design of the new program to reduce the number of prisoners, referred to it as “a very positive process that will improve security and the rule of law in the country’s prisons.”
In his opinion, “since the population and the number of crimes are decreasing, the prison population should also decrease”and in an interview published this Wednesday he criticized the political pressure that, according to him, prevented the conditional release of prisoners under the previous Government.
Despite the reduction in the number of prisoners, Poland remains among the EU countries with the highest number of prisoners. According to data from the Council of Europe for 2022, the latest published, the incarceration rate in Poland rose by 6.1% in that year and it is currently estimated that, between inmates and those arrested awaiting trial, there may be around 97,000 people in prison. Polish prisons.
In Poland, the decision on parole is made by the penitentiary court, taking into account factors such as the prisoner’s attitude, the circumstances of the crime and his behavior in prison. The Ministry of Justice proposes that prison directors request the early release of inmates when they consider that their resocialization process can continue outside of prison.
Poland, in any case, is not the only European country that is looking for solutions to reduce the saturation of its prisons. In the United Kingdom, for example, they proposed sending the hundreds of Polish prisoners they have, precisely, to their country of origin. What they did do is begin the release of men and women convicted of non-violent crimes who had served at least 40% of their sentence. This way They intended to improve the 99% occupancy figure that currently exists.
In France, the scenario is similar, the data is almost identical, and they are building new prisons or reconditioning them, like Italy. Sweden and Finland are experimenting with monitoring methods that do not include seclusion. The situation is better in Spain, with an occupancy rate slightly higher than 70%.
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