and to rehabilitate.240 The Public Defender has been issuing a recommendation for years on the increase of the number of short and long visits for life prisoners. It is noteworthy that by 2020, several persons sentenced to life imprisonment were transferred from closed-type detention facilities to semi-open-type facilities. This innovation is very important for the realization of the principles of inadmissibility of segregation and for realization of progression principle241. However, it should be noted that the criteria and procedures for transfer to a relatively low-risk facility were unknown to most of interviewed life prisoners. It is also noteworthy that some of them refrain from moving to a semi-open facility due to the impending conflict with members of the criminal subculture. The ombudsman considers it important that the penitentiary system has a unified and transparent system of risk and needs assessment and individual sentence planning, the implementation of which should enable the progression and improvement of the legal conditions. In addition, it is important that the successful Implementation of an individual plan be integrated with the possibilities of sentence revision and release. It is unfortunate that the penitentiary system has not for years introduced a unified system for assessing the risks of convicts and the system of sentencing, which would report on the progress of convicts and be submitted to the court to assist the court in making decisions. At the same time, the convicts were not aware of the criteria that actually determined the possibility of release. The Public Defender welcomes the amendments of January 11, 2021 to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code,242 which determined the successful completion of the program of preparation for release by life prisoners adopted by the Minister of Justice of Georgia as one of the necessary conditions for the court decision on the early release of a convicted person subject to life imprisonment on change of the sentence. The ombudsman hopes that these changes will help establish a unified system for assessing risks and needs and individual sentence planning. Amnesty is a one-time, temporary and special measure of revision of the sentence, on the basis of which persons accused and convicted of committing certain crimes under the Criminal Code of Georgia are released from criminal liability and punishment, also, the imposed sentence is reduced or changed to a less strict sentence for persons convicted of certain crimes.243 It is unfortunate that the large-scale amnesty act issued in 2012 did not apply to persons sentenced to life imprisonment because their term of imprisonment was not specified. On January 11, 2020 the Parliament of Georgia adopted an amnesty act, which mainly covered less serious crimes. The Amnesty Act is an act of humanity and is also important for unloading the penitentiary system. Visit of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture in Georgia, (2015) Available at: http: // https://www.coe.int/en/web/cpt/home [last visited: 12.01.2021]. 241Council of Europe European Committee against Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), Status of Imprisoned Persons, excerpt from the 25th Unified Report [CPT/Inf (2016) 10], April 2016, available at: https://rm.coe.int/16809534f2 [Last visited: 11.01.21]. 242 Criminal Code of Georgia, Article 721 (1); Article 73 (7). 243Law on Amnesty of 11 January 2021. 240 72