Conditions of East Georgia prisons inspected

The Public Defender’s Office carried out the monitoring of the eastern Georgian penitentiary system in July-August, 2011. The project launched by the Georgian Young Lawyers Assassination (GYLA) supported the National Preventive Mechanism. The groups had an opportunity to meet with the detainees and have confidential conversations with them. They also checked the conditions of the penitentiary system to find out whether the situation there met local and international standards.

The group monitoring process also spoke with the administration and staff of the buildings and inspected infrastructure and living conditions for the detainees. The results have shown both positive and negative trends within the penitentiary system which have been published in the Public Defender’s report in detail. “There are some problems with medical services at particular buildings; they aren’t sufficiently provided with medicine. Some buildings still have no TV sets and there are practically no re-socialization programs for the detainees preparing them to freedom,” the report stated.

The Public Defender’s Office also expressed concern about the conditions for prisoners in certain jails because such jails have small ventilators which do not have enough protection against the summer heat. “Moreover, the detainees have to spend about 23 hours in the wards due to the nonexistence of labor, cognitive or other similar activities,” it was said in a report.