Also, in 2015, long-term training course (with the duration of six months) for employees of the Legal Regime Unit at the establishments for deprivation of liberty was continued. It consists of 5 stages and covers both theory and practice. 25 persons participated in this course. The trainings should be focused on the prevention of torture and ill-treatment and on human rights protection at penitentiary establishments. When preparing the program, the frequency of trainings and topicality of subject-matter should be taken into account. It is also important that the knowledge acquired through trainings is used in practice. Relevant international practices shows that in many prisoners, training programs do not adopt human rights based approach and procedures and are not of much practical use. The personnel of the penitentiary establishments prefer to follow the established practice.33 In order to maintain sustainability of trainings and their practicality, it is essential to introduce a mechanism for evaluating trainings. There are different ways of evaluating the effectiveness of trainings that can help assess if there have been any improvements. It is worth noting that the Training Centre of the Ministry of Corrections, the public law entity, has introduced a mentorship program, within the framework of the ‘long-term training course for the employees of the Legal Regime Unit of the establishments for deprivation of liberty’, in order to evaluate effectiveness an sustainability of the results of trainings. The training was conducted for 11 mentors of the system of corrections. Despite the above mentioned positive steps, qualification and experience of employees of the penitentiary system remain one of the main challenges. The Public Defender considers that the number of participants of trainings in 2015 and subject-matter of these trainings do not adequately address the needs related to knowledge and skills of personnel in order to secure human rights protection as well as order and safety. Special attention needs to be paid to the following issues: safety, including the conception of dynamic safety, management of violent criminals using techniques of prevention and discharge, such as negotiation and mediation. RECOMMENDATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE MINISTER OF CORRECTIONS: • Introduce training programs, based on the assessment of needs for improving knowledge and skills of personnel, to secure protection of human rights, order and safety in penitentiary establishments; facilitate participation of employees in these training programs. When preparing these training programs, special attention needs to be paid to the topics such as safety, including the 33 United Nations Prison Incident Management Handbook, 2013, p. 23. NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM (NPM), 2015 35

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