Justice Minister qualifies warning of prison service “collapse” due to overcrowding

The Justice Minister Daniela Kovářová has qualified comments made earlier this week on overcrowding in the country’s prisons. The comments came at the end of a two-day inspection trip to penal facilities around the Czech Republic, and were interpreted by the media as suggesting the Czech prison system was close to collapse. This is not the case, says Mrs Kovářová, although the situation is serious.

Daniela Kovářová, photo: CTK

Justice Minister Daniela Kovářová has spent two days visiting prisons in Bohemia and Moravia, to see for herself how bad the problem of overcrowding is in the Czech penal system. Certainly the numbers are alarming. There are currently 22,000 prisoners in a country of 10 million people, the highest number since the year 2000, and a further 7,500 are waiting to enter prison to serve their sentences. If nothing is done now, said Mrs Kovářová, the system could at some point in the future collapse. But speaking on Czech Television, she said the situation was - for the moment at least - under control.

Photo: Filip Jandourek

“At present it is true that some prisons are overcrowded by 115%, some even by 130%. However the situation at present is such that I will continue to monitor it, and together with the head of the prison service will look for ways and measures to deal with it, in order that I’m prepared for any eventuality in the future.”

In some of the most overcrowded prisons inmates are forced to sleep on the floors of the gymnasium, and reports say many prison directors have given up any notions of rehabilitation and are simply concentrating on stopping people escaping and preventing outbreaks of unrest.

However measures are being taken to ease overcrowding. A new prison has just opened in Rapotice, near Brno, bringing the number of prisons in the Czech Republic to 36. A new wing for 200 inmates, meanwhile, has been added to the prison at Kynšperk nad Ohří near Karlovy Vary. But the real innovation is electronic tagging allowing non-violent prisoners such as white collar criminals to serve their sentences at home, as long as they don’t leave it. The system, however, is expensive – about 5,000 crowns per tag alone – and minister Kovářová is working on new rules that would require such prisoners to pay for the tags themselves.