Three 1-day awareness raising seminars for the prison staff on the final drafts of the Strategy on zero tolerance to ill-treatment and the Corruption Mitigation Plan took place on 20-22 February 2017 in the Prison staff Training Centre in Skopje and in Bitola.

The aim of the seminars was to present these two important documents that have been prepared separately by two working groups, composed of representatives from the Directorate for Execution of Sanctions (DECS) and prison staff, and facilitated by international and national consultants, to the prison governors and staff. The participants assessed positively the presented strategy and mitigation plan and expressed commitment for their implementation in the everyday work. The final documents will be submitted to DECS for formal adoption and acceptance. The overall aim of these strategies is to set in place more effective mechanisms for prevention or dealing with cases of ill-treatment and corrupt practices by prison staff.

The seminars were attended by a total of 87 participants, namely prison governors, DECS employees and managerial staff in the areas of prison security, rehabilitation and healthcare, covering all penitentiary institutions nation-wide.

The seminars were organised within the scope of the Action ‘’Strengthening the protection of the rights of sentenced persons’’, co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe within the “Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey”.