The Lithuanian Probation Service, as part of the project "Development of Quality Based Lithuanian Correctional Service System" is launching new activities at Pravieniškės Prison No.1 and Vilnius Prison to help prisoners prepare for life in freedom. Probation officers will be assisted by electronic monitoring specialists, mediators and social workers. 
 

The electronic monitoring specialists will prepare prisoners for their release with intensive supervision, organise individual lectures for prisoners on the benefits of collars, and educate them on how to use the equipment properly. 
 

Mediators will help educate inmates about post-trial mediation and provide mediation services. Post-trial mediation is designed to reconcile the two sides of the crime in order to help the prisoner adapt to the changed circumstances after release. Mediators will work not only with people under probation supervision, but also with those who are still serving a custodial sentence, as they have to be actively preparing for their return to society in the year before their eventual parole release, and mediation can help to facilitate this process. 
 

The project focuses on the newly recruited social workers who will contribute to the main mission of the probation service: to start working with potential clients as early as possible while they are still in prison, and to continue their successful integration into society once they are under the supervision of the probation service.
 

The need for social workers is particularly high, as the functions of social workers in the probation system have so far been carried out by specialists of the Lithuanian Probation Service. When there is an opportunity to invest in new forms of activity, the aim is to keep workers in a single function. For example, social workers should focus solely on helping prospective probation clients prepare for their first steps in prison.
 

From March 2023, the Lithuanian Probation Service will launch another additional activity: in cooperation with non-governmental organisations, it will provide much needed psychological support to persons under the supervision of the probation service, who are not easily accessible in towns remote from the centre of the region.
 

According to Romas Ostanavičius, Director of the Lithuanian Probation Service, the cooperation between the Lithuanian Probation Service and the Lithuanian Prison Service is mobilising the staff of the penitentiary system, giving them even greater opportunities to successfully carry out the most important function of the penitentiary system - resocialisation.  
 

The project is supervised by the Central Project Management Agency (CPVA), with a total allocation of €19,020,728, of which €16,167,619 is from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism's Justice and Home Affairs Programme 2014-2021.
 

About the Justice and Home Affairs programme: 

The Justice and Home Affairs programme is strengthening the rule of law in Lithuania. Various measures of the programme increase the efficiency of the Lithuanian judiciary and prosecution service, improve the penal enforcement system, strengthen the competences of the judiciary and law enforcement authorities and inter-institutional cooperation in the field of domestic and gender-based violence, and improve the capacity of the police in fighting crime. In total, more than €40 million has been allocated to the programme for the period 2014-2021. The programme is operated by the CPVA and implemented in partnership with partners.