The Minister of Justice, Igor Filkov, had a working visit to the Struga Prison, which is of an open type, during which the Director of the prison, Ardit Mustafai, introduced him to the conditions, capacities, human resources and possibilities for resocialization and rehabilitation of convicted persons.
"We had a working meeting, we saw the conditions, we saw the capacities of the prison. We re-actualized the idea of having a completely female prison by re-adapting many facilities and the entire female ward from the Idrizovo Prison would be transferred here. We have been talking about it as an idea for some time, we hope that we will find support from all partners and we will be able to realize it soon. The idea of a female prison means an all-female prison, and the inmates from here will be transferred elsewhere. We agreed to prepare a project and then we will know how much funding will be needed”, said Filkov, pointing out that the conditions are far from being excellent in any prison in the country and no investment has been made for decades", said the Minister of Justice, Igor Filkov.
The Penitentiary Struga has a capacity for 60 people, and currently 21 people are serving a prison sentence there. Since it is an open prison, inmates are allowed to be employed. The idea is to approach the drafting of a project to determine the financial implications, to completely convert the prison so that it suits the needs of the female inmate population. In this way, we strive to increase the safety of female prisoners and completely distance them from the problems they face in the Penitentiary Institution Idrizovo. At the same time, the existing prisoners from Struga Prison will be redeployed to other prison facilities.
