Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at introduction ceremony for the newly-appointed Director General of the Prison Administration:

 

Hello everyone!

From the very beginning, the government and the Ministry of Justice in particular have been totally committed to dealing, among many other things, with the extraordinary challenge of normalizing the corrupt and crumbling system of the penitentiary institutions. This started with cleaning this body, which had become a threat to the prisons security itself because of the countless recruitment of individuals with criminal record as the prison system’s employees, or members of the Penitentiary Police, in a degradation that commenced years ago and continued over the years, putting the government and the Ministry of Justice in the position of a very difficult battle to transform the whole recruitment system on the very first day of our term in office.

For the first time ever in the history of the country’s penitentiary institutions, a recruitment process of selecting prison security officials from the Academy of Security was organized by the Ministry of Justice and, in close collaboration with the Academy of Security officials, a fair and complete pre-employment testing was held. For the first time, the recruitment process of the low-ranking employees in the institutions for the execution of criminal decisions in Shkodra was not carried out according to a party militant list as it unfortunately was the tradition over the years in the past.

Some 219 employees were followed by 309 other low-ranking employees, a considerable number of them coming from the Armed Forces, the State Police and the Penitentiary Police, as a career experience and at the same time a new training system was developed by the Security Academy.  At the same time, the Minister of Justice set a fairly guaranteed selection criterion as a basic criterion for the prison administration employees through a competition process with the applicants coming mostly from the former military personnel.

The foundations of this system have been already laid by now, but we haven’t absolutely yet reached to where we should in every respect. We are well-aware about that. Not long time ago we witnessed to one of the most meaningful demonstrations of the continued weakness and deficiencies of the prison system with the intolerable hesitation showed by two or three elements to execute judicial rulings, something that led to the just and immediate reaction from the Minister of Justice and the indispensability to take the Penitentiary Police to a completely new professional and moral level, which is also the reason we are here today and I am rightfully confident in the selection and appointment made by the Minister of Justice.

I am here today to reinforce a message the Ministry of Justice is constantly conveying and, though it may sound like a repetition, I won’t spare in pointing out to the Justice Minister’s determination in spearheading this multifaceted endeavour from restoring a legal order to assuring the professional and moral integrity within the prison system and to the daily fight against corruption in her capacity as national coordinator of the government’s Anticorruption Task Force.

In this regard, I have welcomed and expressed support for the proposal to strengthen combat against convicted criminals serving their sentence in prison, but who run the organized crime world from jail, something that doesn’t happen for the first time in Albania, but will no longer be the case in our country because a set of new measures due to be implemented with the aim of limiting and fully eliminating activities by high organized crime profiles from inside the prisons, high-profile criminals who manage to engage in illegal and dangerous activities thanks also to corrupt capacities, which, as you saw 24 hours earlier, will be punished unsparingly and without any compromise to anyone, no matter who. Whoever, for whatever reason, cooperates with the convicted criminals either in or outside prisons, questioning the integrity of these institutions, will be punished unsparingly.

The actions proposed by the Minister of Justice and fully supported by me and the Albanian government – one of them includes changes to the law – consist of classifying prisons on the basis of the risk criteria for prisoners in 2 pilot institutions – prisons indeed are categorized, but the new classification of prisons is designed to completely isolate the high-profile criminals. In other words, the proposals include implementation of the universally known 41 Bis prison regime put in place for first time by Italy against the Mafia bosses, and it will be applied to all inmates involved in organized crime gangs or terrorism and are considered highly dangerous individuals.

Call blocking and mobile phone jamming devices will soon be installed to permanently block phone and internet signals and contacts with the outside world within jails, while a safe telephone system for the prisoners will be installed under administration in compliance with a very strict regulation and under the surveillance cameras 24/7, which will first install in the “313” prison and will then expand to all 24 institutions of serving the imprisonment sentence. The surveillance camera footages from the high-security and especially important prisons will be watched not only by the Prison Administration Directorate, but also by the Power of Law structure. So, two surveillance rooms will operate to monitor around the clock every single movement within and outside the prisons.

Of course, establishment of such a system won’t extend to the entire territory of the country in respect for human rights and freedom and in respect for prisoner treatment standards in prisons, or detention centres, including a juvenile institution in Kavaja and so on. We are very aware that a lot remains to be done in this regard.

Likewise, the Ministry of Justice, also in collaboration with the newly-appointed Director General of the Prison Administration and the newly-appointed Director of Penitentiary Police, will permanently shut down any types of coffee bars and pubs owned by outsider but who are clearly linked to organized crime in certain cases and sometimes, as it has turned out in the past, these premises were transformed into mobile collection and delivery centres and, or even worse, into centres of narcotics.

Every service of this kind will be closed down, while every internal service will be directly administered by the state-owned prison administration. There will be no longer tenants or lessors inside the prison premises. An internal service system will be set up to provide a fully controlled catering service. The Director General and the heads of institutions will be held responsible for everything.

We expect the Minister of Justice to table the proposals on the specific treatment of all personnel members who deserve special support. A salary hike for the members of the Penitentiary Police is projected in the upcoming state budget as ongoing complaints have been reported about a sort of unfair differentiation compared to the State Police. Appointment of the new Prison Administration Director is an added motivation considering that asking for his contribution to serve in this position we actually have asked for the service of a loyal and a trustworthy servant of the state while serving in top security officer jobs.

I would like to emphasise something else too. It has never been our preference and we don’t intend to do so because it is not what we are tasked with and this is not the reason why we don’t accuse the others, but yet it crucially important to point out that the moral and professional integrity audit, carried out on a directive by the Minister of Justice, has found out some 130 prison administration employees with criminal records for various offences and should have never been hired in this system.

Likewise, disciplinary actions have been launched against 42 prison system employees for violations running counter to the law, whereas the Internal Service has referred the case of 66 officials and prison administration employees to the Prosecution in the respective judicial districts. Some 397 alleged cases have been referred to the Prosecutor’s Office since the new Justice Minister took office.

Undoubtedly, the prison administration system is today less corrupt, but it is also unquestionable that the fight against corruption in this system takes place intensively on daily basis. We are on the side of justice. We don’t distinguish between left of right when it comes to fulfilling our duty and mission towards Albania and the Albanians and when it comes to dive the border between us and whoever violates the law.

So this is an extremely harsh battle, but yet winnable and the steps we have already made are sufficient for everyone to understand that the success in this battle is fully achievable if fought with determination and commitment and whoever runs counter to this commitment and determination has nothing to do with us and won’t be allowed to walk along with us on this path. This is clear and I believe it will become increasingly clear.

I am very pleased that – though this is somewhat shameful to say – but I am very pleased that after 10 years, the Penitentiary Police members will finally have new uniforms. This is a shocking example of the lack of seriousness that has characterized the Ministry of Justice over years, along with the parties that have run and today wag the flag of a morality based on defamation.

I would like to congratulate the new Prison Administration Director on his appointment and wish him every success, looking forwards to seeing his toughness he hasn’t included on the CV being shown in the everyday work, just like he has proved to be while serving in other security job positions, earning respect from all colleagues.

To conclude, I want to tell you something that might sound somehow funny, but in this case it is joke half meant true.

It is very difficult to seek people’s opinions and get very similar or even same opinions. This was exactly the case of the newly-appointed Prison Administration Director. I have been randomly told that police officers never criticize each other. Quite the contrary, the express best opinion about each other. I am really looking forward not to watching these opinions being turned down in any news reel, showing that the Director was not the right person for the job. However, everyone is responsible for his own self at the end of the day.

Thank you very much!