New ways of working with prisoners.

Next meeting connected with FREE project funded from European Commission- Life Learning Grundtvig took place  from 26th February to 1st March in the Custody Suite in Radom 

The main subject of FREE project is to exchange experiences and work out new methods of working with prisoners. Partners from four countries are taking part in the project:

Belgium CVO  Deurne-Antwerpe non-govermental organization operating on extending adults` knowledge

France- National Higher Institute of Training and Research for the Education of Young Disabled Persons and Adapted Teaching

Finland- Oulu vankila, Custody Suite in Oul

Poland- Custody Suite in Radom

During two meeting days, participants had the opportunity to exchange experiences about take actions on prisoners in each country to enable them to come back to the labour market. On the second day of the visit, a meeting in Enterprise Association in Radom headquarters took place. Methods on working with prisoners in Poland were discussed. The area of cooperation with people leaving custody suites after serving their sentence of imprisonment were presented by the manager of the Local Social Welfare Centre in Kowala. Polish reality was difficult to be understood by project participants also because of difficulty in translating such terms as high unemployment, excluded person, black market, social contract, social excluding, social welfare centre. Western model of cooperation with prisoners is totally different from our methods. Non-governmental organizations mostly take care of this group of people, and they start to support prisoners in the custody suite and go on supporting prisoners when they finish their sentences of imprisonment. This process prevents prisoners from being lost and commiting another crime or breaking up family.