New approach towards the inmates

The Minister of Corrections, Kakha Kakhishvili, has announced that costly appointments with inmates would be rejected and soon prisoners’ families and all interested individuals would be able to enjoy free of charge meetings with those behind bars.

“We have already drafted a bill that envisages the abolition of several fees in prisons. We will present the bill firstly to the Government and then in Parliament,” Kakhishvili said.

The Minister also stated that his body planned to introduce special GPS bracelets for inmates, initially for juvenile prisoners, for domestic custody.

According to the Minister, work in this direction has already started and the unique initiative for the region would decrease the number of inmates in prisons.

“Those who committed less grave crimes should not be sent to jail,” Kakhishvili said.

“Initially 200 special GPS monitoring bracelets worth $520,000 USD (about 1.24 million GEL ) would be purchased by the Government,” the Minister said.

Of course introducing new standards in prisons can be only welcomed.

Under the previous government of Georgia our country took an initial place with the number of prisoners in Europe.

Leadership in this direction can never be a subject of pride.

Herewith, more prisoners mean more budgetary expenses for the government and a heavy burden for the inmates’ families.

The Government should also actively work for the crime prevention and support the re-socialization of former inmates, for the people not to commit repeated crimes when they leave prisons.