Rationale

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As the statistical data shows by the time of January 2004, 8231 persons were being held in custody. These numbers include 4962 persons sentenced and 3269 in pre-trial detention. The employment and education levels in prisons are very low, thus ex- prisoners have a very small chance of finding a job after release. In adition many of them suffer from different addictions and do not have a place of residence and even a passport.

The State Probation Service, Prison Administration, Latvian Local Government Union, the University College of Social Work and Social Pedagogy “Attīstība”, Valmiera City Council, International fund “Glābšana” and charity organization “Mūsu zeme” have agreed upon the partnership and developed a project “New Solutions in Promoting Employment of Ex-prisoners”.
The Ministry of Education and Science has agreed to act as a strategic partner in the project. The State Employment Agency and the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Latvia will also provide their support in the project.

The project corresponds to the EQUAL programme sector of promoting accessibility of labour market. It is intended in making the Latvian labour market more accessible to discharged prisoners and integrating this target group into social environment.

The major project activities:
research on social rehabilitation options for prisoners and ex-prisoners;
development of a social rehabilitation concept for prisoners and necessary;
development of a pilot project for social rehabilitation centers in prisons (SRCP);
development and implementation of work practice coordination teams (WPCTs) in prisons;
development of a pilot model for social rehabilitation centers (SRCs) for ex- prisoners; establishment of these centers and selection of clients;
development and implementation of methodology for the risk and needs assessment;
approbation of general education programme implementation models in prisons;
promotion of co-operation between social rehabilitation canters and general education establishments;
development of professional training and re-training models and its implementation for prisoners and ex- prisoners;
development, approbation and implementation of social rehabilitation programmes in prisons and social rehabilitation canters;
improvement of the individual work with the clients, carried out by the social workers and psychologists;
involvement of ex-prisoners in wage labor;
exchange of experience and improvement of staff qualification;
summing up of the project experience and evaluation of the pilot project;
information campaign and distribution of the project results
making amendments and additions to laws in order to establish the results of the project.

Objective

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The project has the following direct goals:
1. To promote international and local cooperation between different organizations in order to strengthen the support of prisoners and to improve the social inclusion and integration of ex- prisoners into the labor market.
2. To develop and institutionalize a multi-level support system for maintaining and increasing prisoner working skills, as well as improving ex-prisoner integration into the labor market and society by the development of a pilot project.

The overall purpose of the project developed by the partnership is to make Latvian labour market accessible to individuals discharged from imprisonment and to integrate this target group into social environment of the country.
To achieve this goal the co-operation network and structures will be developed and secured for promotion of prisoner/discharged prisoner employment and their social involvement. The new support system will be modelled involving both the work with prisoners and continuation of this work after the person is released from imprisonment. The support system consists of two components:
The 1st component of the project will carry out a set of measures in order to improve general and professional education of prisoners, to maintain their working skills and to perform social correction work in prisons.
The 2nd component of the project will be responsible for the development of a new social rehabilitation system to support individuals discharged from imprisonment.
The developed system as a set of measures will solve issues both concerning the professional qualification and job settlement of the target audience, and additional factors (factors that prevent individuals from the target audience entering into labour market relations: no place of residence, addiction problems, lack of social skills, etc.).

Following tasks must be done to achieve those direct goals:
A national and international partnership network must be created by involving co-operation partners from regional, national and international levels.
To strengthen the capacity of the specialists involved in providing support to the target group.
The policy of prisoner and ex-prisoner rehabilitation and employment must be analyzed in order to make suggestions for the changes in national policy.
Expand the accessibility of general and professional education programmes in prisons and after imprisonment.
New job practices must be created for prisoner support.
Social rehabilitation centers must be created for increasing ex-prisoner competitiveness in the labor market and preventing the obstructive factors for social integration.
A set of social rehabilitation measures must be taken (evaluation of the needs and risks, consultative support, social rehabilitation programmes) to support prisoners and ex- prisoners.
Expand the opportunities for ex- prisoner employment.
Create a normative basis and a financing model in order to ensure the functioning of the system created.
The project experience generalization, distribution and popularization must be done in regional, national and international level.
To inform the society about the project and develop understanding about the necessity of social integration of the target audience.

Innovation

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The project involves following innovative elements in the context of Latvia:

A national and international partnership will be created that will form the new social rehabilitation system by creating a set of measures for the support of the target audience. Social rehabilitation will be provided during imprisonment and will continue after imprisonment. Re-delegation of responsibilities for administrative workers in prisons will be carried out. Social work and means of work practices that are currently under the responsibility of the prison administration will be assigned to the prison social rehabilitation centre and work practice coordination team. The involved qualified specialists will guarantee the quality performance of these tasks. Currently the issues concerning work practices in prisons are solved (if at all) in each prison individually. A work practice coordination team (WPCT) will be developed within the framework of the pilot project that will ensure the creation of work practices in all prisons in the system level, thus increasing prisoners’ competitiveness in the labor market after their discharge. SRCPs will be created. The involvement of specially trained new specialists – social workers, psychologists, narcologists – in the social work with prisoners will contribute to humanization of the prison environment, thus improving their re-socializing process and increasing their competitiveness in the labor market after imprisonment. Methodology for the evaluation of needs and risks will be developed and approbated; this will ensure an individual approach in organizing support for the target audience. New social rehabilitation programme modules will be created and approbated; that will solve the topical issues of the target audience, which were unsolved up to this moment (motivation for employment and social life, addiction matters, prevention of aggression, communication skills). The newly created support system will be prepared for the continuation after the end of the project by institutionalizing the system, securing it in respective laws and regulations. The project involves following improvements in already existing approaches and practices: The services maintaining general and professional education, social rehabilitation and working skills available to prisoners will be expanded. The support to ex-prisoners in rehabilitation centers will be available closer to their settlements (currently this service is available to 20 clients in 1 SRC located in Salas rural municipality, Riga district. By creating 4 SRCs the service will be available to 80 clients). By exercising special training specialists’ capacity to support the target audience and perform its social rehabilitation will be improved.

Budget Action 2

1 500 000 – 2 000 000 €

Beneficiaries

Empowerment

 With beneficiaries

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The social rehabilitation system developed in the project is directly set to prevent the discrimination of the target group:
evaluation of the target audience needs and risks will be done. This will help to determine the necessary support and develop individual social rehabilitation plans for individuals in prisons or those being discharged;
opportunities for the target audience to acquire general and professional education and to get involved in activities for increasing their competitiveness will be expanded; newly developed WPCT in prisons will significantly increase prisoners’ opportunities to acquire work practice and maintain working skills;
social rehabilitation system developed within the project (social work taken up by SRCPs and SRCs) will improve the integration process of the target audience into the labor market;
320 discharged individuals, will be supplied with temporary accommodation in SRCs helping them with search for home at the same time;
the target audience will receive consultative support from a social worker and psychologist available in SRCPs and SRCs; the above mentioned specialists will individually try to prevent the factors that obstruct the target group from involvement into the labor market (lack of documents, inefficiency in job searching, inefficiency in organizing their time, etc.);
individuals discharged from imprisonment will get support in solving employment issues by involvement in temporary public works, subsidized job programmes, social enterprises and regular jobs. Equal opportunity principle also involves co-operation within the partnership, guaranteeing equal opportunities for partners in the project development, implementation, supervision and evaluation that will be done through mediation of the project management committee (the committee makes strategic decisions and supervises the project) and co-operation agreements. Target audience also has the opportunities to affect the process and content of the project. This will be determined by analyzing the results of the study of target audience needs.

 Between national partners

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The effective exchange of information and co-operation is secured in the following way:
co-operation agreements are the basis for co-operation, where the role of each partner, their mutual rights and obligations, allocation of resources, sessions for completion of activities, forms and mechanisms of reports are defined;
strategic decisions and changes in the project process will be made in the project management committee represented by all project partners, thus securing the involvement of co-operation partners in the process of decision-making and management.
the administrative personnel of the project will organize the implementation of strategic decisions, the process of activities and information exchange between partners. Broader co-operation is organized within two components of the project. As a partner the Prison Administration coordinates support services for prisoners (1st component). The state Probation Service organizes a set of measures provided for individuals discharged from imprisonment (2nd component). Other partners of the project implement the spectrum of activities defined in their co-operation agreement within the framework of one or the other component.
The participation of the target audience in services provided by the project will be documented. Likewise the information about the amount and results of services provided to the target audience will be documented, and all changes analysed. The collected information will be available to co-operation partners, project sponsors and other interested parties.

Transnationality

 Linguistic skills

• latviešu valoda
• English
• Deutsch

 Percentage of the budget for transnational activities

• 5.0%

 Transnational Co-operation Partnerships

Background

 Involvment in previous EU programmes

• One partner involved in A&E

National Partners

Agreement Summary

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The common objectives of the DP are:

- To benchmark current practices in chosen jurisdictions (Northern Ireland, Ireland and Latvia) in relation to processes and models of employability progression operating inside and outside prison.

- To add value to all national programmes following examination of engagements with employers through the provision of methods designed to promote the inclusion of individuals post custody (NI and Latvia).

- To scope the models of staff training and development applying in partner programmes and to assess the relevance for National Application. (Northern Ireland and Latvia).

- To share learning from pilot initiatives in relation to mentoring and employment placement (Northern Ireland and Ireland).

- To disseminate the learning from the common objectives throughout relevant networks and partnerships. (Northern Ireland, Ireland and Latvia).

The State Probation Service

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The State Probation Service was established in October 7, 2003 and it acts under the Law on State Probation Service of the Republic of Latvia.
Currently the Service is developing a regional network of territorial divisions (in 2005 18 new territorial divisions will be established additionally to the existing 10, thus creating a network of divisions all over Latvia.
The appearance of probation institutions in Latvia is a sequel to the criminal penalty system reform which, after Latvia regained its independence, was begun with the prison reform, the creation of modern rights norms in penalty execution and other reforms which aim to improve the effectiveness the of application of criminal penalties and their executions. The reform includes changes not only in the penalty execution, but also in rehabilitation and social inclusion of punished individuals; this is why a part of the Probation Service functions are related the the support of ex-prisoners. Its official functions are to take the preventive measures and to provide help to individuals after-imprisonment (give information about accommodation, help in finding useful occupation, help in obtaining personal identification documents, offer the participation in probation programmes, provide consultations about possible solutions concerning integration into society). Considering its grand scale the development of probation system is planned to be gradual by adopting and implementing new functions, thus covering the whole territory of Latvia till 2006.
Within its eleven-months of existence the Probation Service has been involved in many projects as a partner. The Service has participated in many projects of the NGO “Riga City Mission”- “Social Rehabilitation Programme Cesu AIeN camps S.P.I.N.” and “Neklausulu kempings Vilkene”. It has also been a partner to Cesis educational institution for juveniles in the project “Free from Drugs”. The Service has developed and submitted a project proposal concerning the development of its human resources and staff training to the Nordic Council of Ministers and is currently developing other projects for submission which are- “Motivation Programmes for Risk Groups of Social Exclusion” and “Development and Implementation of Social Rehabilitation” announced by Society Integration Foundation (SIF).

Contact person(s)

Charity Organisation '" Mūsu zeme"

Contact person(s)

Higher school of social work and social pedagochic Attīstība

Contact person(s)

Prison Administration

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The Latvian Prison Administration (LPA) is a State administrative institution; its supervisory authority is the Ministry of Justice. The functions, tasks and area of responsibilities of the LPA are stated in “The Latvian Prison Administration Statutes” by the Cabinet Regulations Nr. 395 (second part) of 15th July 2003.
Functions, tasks and area of responsibilities of LPA:
The main task of the LPA is to ensure pre-trial detention as a security measure and imprisonment as a criminal punishment.
In order to fulfil that task the LPA:
organises and controls work of its subordinated institutions and ensures their financial and material-technical basis;
ensures professional training and re-training for staff;
works out draft of budget;
organises efficient use of its budget in accordance with legislation and regulations;
performs other tasks that are stated in legal norms.
LPA according to its responsibilities:
develops state investment projects and other programme projects, as well as promote realisation of state investment projects that are in LPA interests;
provides suggestions for working out of legal standards;
creates co-operation with international and non-governmental organisations in the fields related to realisation of pre-trial detention and imprisonment, participates in the work of mentioned organisations, analyses related experience of Latvia and other states;
participates in preparation and realisation of international agreements;
provides mass media with information reflecting of the LPA activities.

Contact person(s)

Starptautiskais fonds Glābšana (International Foundation Salvation)

Contact person(s)

The Ministry of Education and Science

Contact person(s)

Valmiera City Municipality

Contact person(s)

New Solutions in Promoting Employment of Ex-prisoners