3. PENITENTIARY SYSTEM The Public Defender welcomes the reforms that took place in the penitentiary system in 2017, within which important amendments were made to the Imprisonment Code. The significant aspects of the reform such as establishing the penitentiary establishment for preparation for early release, enforcement of a new non-custodial measure, i.e., house arrest, and allowing some categories of convicted persons to receive higher education should be positively assessed.9 It should be mentioned from the outset that in 2017, the Public Defender did not request the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia to institute investigation regarding the incidents of physical violence against prisoners by employees of penitentiary establishments.10 Despite this, violence among prisoners, the problem of criminal subculture and informal rule in prisons remain considerable challenges. To establish a violence free environment, it is necessary to implement an effective mechanism for identifying incidents of violence, documenting and notifying them to investigative authorities on the one hand and to eradicate the existing various risky practices on the other hand. In this context, in the reporting period, the enforcement of the new procedure of documenting injuries inflicted on a prisoner due to alleged ill-treatment can be assessed as a step forward. However, unfortunately, the Public Defender’s recommendations regarding further improvement of this procedure have not been fulfilled11 and its practical implementation remains a problem. The shortcomings of documenting injuries is confirmed by the fact that injuries were documented according to the new procedure only in 4 cases in penitentiary establishments, whereas in 2017, according to the information received by the Special Preventive Group, there were far more persons with various bodily injuries placed in penitentiary establishments and they claimed that these injuries had been inflicted during either arrest or thereafter.12 9 Convicted persons placed in the penitentiary establishment for preparation for release, convicted persons of low risk serving their sentence in a low risk prison facility, and convicted persons placed in a juvenile rehabilitation facility may enjoy the right to receive education at the first stage of academic higher education (Bachelor’s degree). (The Imprisonment Code, Article 1151). 10 Special preventive group requested the information about injuries, Please see the Annex for the Statistics. 11 The 2016 Parliamentary Report of the Public Defender of Georgia, pp. 39-40, available at: http://www.ombudsman.ge/uploads/other/4/4494.pdf, (accessed on 12.03.2018). 12 Out of 469 cases inspected in the regions of Georgia, in 19 cases there were various bodily injuries found on the persons held in TDIs and they had claims against police. All these individuals were transferred as accused persons from TDIs to penitentiary establishments. Furthermore, according to the information received from the Ministry of Corrections of Georgia, out of accused persons transferred to penitentiary establishments in 2017, 75 persons suffered injuries during arrest and 85 persons after arrest. 10