Delegates at the international conference on ‘Rehabilitative approaches to drug dependent prisoners’, held in Chisinau, 29-30 November 2017, called for a deepening of professional exchanges in the field of drug dependence treatment and prevention in prisons. More than 100 prison managers, policy makers and experts from 11 countries participated in this event organised by the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe and the Department of Penitentiary Institutions (DPI) of the Republic of Moldova. Representatives of the DPI presented their plans for the new therapeutic community that was officially opened in Pruncul prison just before the opening of the conference.
At the conclusion stage, the delegations from Armenia and Ukraine expressed the wish to consider the adoption of this drug treatment methodology in their countries. Romanian and Norwegian experts agreed to provide expertise for this endeavour. On their part, Moldovan health and prison experts would like to study the drug prevention tool ‘Family Conference’ that had been piloted in two juvenile prisons in Ukraine in the framework of the Pompidou Group project ‘Criminal Justice Responses to drug dependent prisoners’. The conference was part of the joint EU-Council of Europe’s Partnership for Good Governance programme.