BackAmong the most important conclusions of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights one can mention that the number of inmates exceeds the holding capacity of the penitentiary, there are 15 inmates in a place for 10, so they have to be placed on three-bunk beds. According to Máté Szabó, it infringes on the inmates’ rights to human dignity and physical and mental health that several of them are crammed into small cells built for one, and the use of three-bunk beds is contrary to the prohibition of inhuman, degrading treatment.
The prison’s administration tries to balance the ill effects of crowdedness by keeping the inmates occupied. Currently there are 200-230 inmates working on a regular basis, but the penitentiary intends to raise this number to 300, as a minimum.
There are only two psychologists conducting individual and group therapies for inmates convicted for serious, violent crimes, spending their lengthy sentences in the prison, but these two professionals are also in charge of taking care of the psyches of the prison’s employees. Two psychologists are clearly not enough considering the tasks at hand – the Ombudsman sees it as a potential danger to the inmates’ and employees’ right to mental health and to their mental care.
The Commissioner, however, has praised the practice of so-called “family consultations”, organized for inmates to be soon released. Such consultations may help the families to work off the accumulated tension, settle conflicts, and to prepare convicts having spent a considerable time in confinement for being freed. The Ombudsman has also thought favourably of the penitentiary’s initiative to allow inmates to get in touch with their former or prospective employers during the last 6 months of their sentence.
On the basis of all of the above, Commissioner for Fundamental Rights Máté Szabó has requested the Director General of the Hungarian Prison Service to consider the possibilities of increasing the number of prison psychologists and the prison’s holding capacity, lessening the prison cells’ crowdedness and transferring some of the inmates to other penitentiary institutions.
Source: Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary
