In a report published today, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has reiterated concerns over inter-prisoner violence in Lithuania, following an ad hoc visit to the country in February 2024. The objective of the visit was to examine the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations after its 2021 periodic visit, in particular concerning widespread inter-prisoner violence, the abundance of illegal drugs in prisons and the lack of targeted strategies to help the large numbers of prisoners using drugs. To this end, the CPT delegation carried out follow-up visits to Alytus, Marijampolė, Pravieniškės, and Vilnius Prisons.
Today’s report notes that the Lithuanian authorities have taken a number of steps to address these problems. However, the situation observed in the four prisons visited demonstrates that with legal and organisational changes alone only partial progress can be made. The report highlights the shortcomings in the recording and investigation of inter-prisoner violence as well as the multi-faceted causes of such violence – illicit drug use, informal prisoner hierarchy, and totally inadequate custodial staff presence in accommodation areas.
As a response, Lithuania should adopt a carefully thought-out strategic approach to combat the informal prisoner hierarchy and its malignant activities and effects, and a radical and urgent increase in custodial staff (who must be adequately remunerated, appropriately trained and motivated). The CPT calls on the authorities to demonstrate concrete and sustained efforts to tackle these challenging issues if they are to persuade the Committee not to resort to a public statement under the procedure enshrined in Article 10, paragraph 2 of the Convention establishing the CPT. [1] The report is published under the automatic publication procedure to which the Lithuanian authorities have agreed.
[1] “If the Party fails to co-operate or refuses to improve the situation in the light of the Committee’s recommendations, the Committee may decide, after the Party has had an opportunity to make known its views, by a majority of two-thirds of its members to make a public statement on the matter.”
