House Arrest To Deal With Czech Prison Crisis
The Czech government on Monday approved Justice Minister Daniela Kovarova’s project of the introduction of house arrest and electronic monitoring system to prevent a possible collapse of the Czech prison service, lower its costs and protect society against repeat criminals. Story from Prague Monitor.
The possibility of house arrest is embedded in the new Penal Code that will take effect as of January 2010. The Justice Ministry says house arrest should be an alternative to prison sentence for less serious crimes, for instance, minor thefts, and it is to replace the current alternative punishment in the form of community works.
The ministry’s new plan is divided into three phases. The first phase starts when the house arrest punishment takes effect and continues until the introduction of the electronic monitoring of convicts via a special tether with a sensor. At the same time a monitoring device sending information on the convicts’ movement to the central system should be installed in their homes. The project is to decrease the number of prisoners within the first phase already.
The ministry also plans to raise the number of employees in the Probation and Mediation Service by 90 people in connection with the project. The service is to select convicts suitable for house arrest and provide their random checks.
The second phase of the project follows up to the introduction of electronic monitoring of convicts and the completion of changes to respective laws. The Justice Ministry wants to apply for EU subsidies for this phase. In such a case the state would cover only 30 percent of the costs and save some 111 million crowns.
Within the third phase, planned in 2011-2013, house arrest and the electronic monitoring system would be interconnected in judiciary practice.
There are 35 prisons in the ten-million Czech Republic and all of them are overcrowded. A total of 22,000 inmates were in Czech prisons in July and another 7500 convicts were sent to prison but they did not start serving their sentences yet.
Uncategorized