Justice minister announces radical reforms in Ukraine's penitentiary system

He said this live on the Freedom of Speech program on the ICTV channel on Monday, September 2, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"We are planning quite radical reforms in the penitentiary system. These are probably the reforms and the part of the Justice Ministry that is the most difficult and needs the most attention. That is, reform in the penitentiary system takes years. The planning horizon is at least three or more years," Malyuska said.

He noted that the penitentiary system is not only a huge number of detention facilities and prisons, but also "55,000 [representatives] of the Ukrainian population who stay there, and it is just a serious ineffectiveness of the state."

"We stay in government only for the second day, and we are trying to calculate the consequences and possibility of our reforms in general. However, in principle, the model we seek is, on the one hand, the construction of at least several prisons according to the model of our northern neighbors - Denmark, Norway […]. On the other hand, there is a radical transition from imprisonment to other types of punishment not related to such imprisonment," Malyuska said.

According to him, most of the prisoners who are released after serving their sentence commit crimes again.

Malyuska believes that the use of community service to persons who committed crimes, ankle bracelets, house arrest, and other means of punishment is much more effective.

"It is ten times safer for the state and ten times cheaper," the minister said.

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