The European Union and Council of Europe joint actions on the improvement of the Albanian prison system, continued to raise the skills of prison police and psycho-social staff in Albania concerning the management of high risk/violent prisoners and radicalised inmates. Both violent inmates and violent extremist prisoners (VEPs) are considered as potentially possessing a high risk to the prison population and society, requiring thus specialised programmes and enhanced attention from prison staff.

During a 2-day training held on 5-6 December 2022, 22 multi-disciplinary staff from the Albanian penitentiary system gathered in Korca, where they increased their understanding of their role in assisting disengagement of radicalised inmates and management of high risk/violent prisoners. They also improved their knowledge and skills on internal progressive classification of prisoners and best use of resources, incident management and structured criminal gangs, as well as dynamic security.

During the training real-life footage taken from Albanian prisons was offered to allow for an objective analysis of incident response in Peqin prison.  The training was delivered by a national trainer and an international consultant, pairing both local context and relevant international practices.

This activity was organised as an joint activity of the Action “Enhancing the protection of human rights of prisoners in Albania” and the regional Action “Enhancing penitentiary capacities in addressing radicalisation in prisons in the Western Balkans”, as a part of joint initiative of the European Union and Council of Europe “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.