More than 20 professionals, including senior officials from the Ministries of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska, as well as prison managers from the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska, met on 13 September 2019 in Brcko to define guidelines for the development of a comprehensive Strategic policy document.

The participants agreed that the aim of the Strategic Policy Document is to define short, mid and long-term goals for outlining the main activities to be carried out by the relevant authorities dealing with violent and extremist prisoners (VEPs). There is a need for enhancing legal instruments, human resources and operational capacities in order to effectively address the issue of radicalisation in prisons and strengthen the VEPs rehabilitation and the multi-agency cooperation. The Strategic Policy Document will take into account the Council of Europe and other relevant international standards regarding the prevention of radicalisation in the prison establishments.

This session was held as part of the activities of the project ''Structured sentence management for violent and extremist prisoners", funded by the voluntary contribution of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and implemented by the Council of Europe.