Nataša Tanjević, Deputy Protector of Citizens for the Protection of Rights of Persons Deprived of their Liberty, participated today in the Social Dialogue entitled "Resocialization and reintegration of ex-convicts – the path to a useful member of society". The dialogue was held in the Assembly of the City of Kragujevac, organized by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, in cooperation with the City Administration of Kragujevac.
Tanjević, PhD spoke about the activities of the Protector of Citizens, especially the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture, which were undertaken in order to improve the situation in that area and further challenges related to the implementation of the process of resocialization of convicted persons and their reintegration into society. She pointed out the importance of work engagement, professional training and education in prisons, filling free time with adequate content and implementation of specialized treatment programs, i.e. investing in treatment programs and contents. "If the prison conditions are better, the forms of treatment are more diverse, and the prison staff is sufficiently numerous and adequately trained to work with this population, the greater is the possibility that convicted persons will be re-educated and will return to socially acceptable forms of behaviour", said Tanjević, PhD. Also, pointing out that the final stage of reintegration is post-penal treatment, which should prevent the re-commitment of criminal acts, and thus reduce the risks of recidivism, she indicated that further challenges and key priorities in that area will relate to the development of customized preparation programs for release, post-penal acceptance programs as well as trainings of employees in the treatment services and trust offices for their implementation, especially post-penal acceptance programs for particularly sensitive categories of prisoners.
The social dialogue was organized as part of the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the World Day of Zero Tolerance for Discrimination, with the aim of assessing the position of marginalized groups, among which ex-convicts belong to a particularly vulnerable group, and it gathered representatives of the competent ministries, the Administration for the Enforcement of Penal Sanctions, independent institutions, the academia, civil society organizations.