The prisoners managed to demand such conditions as the law forbids: warnings are sounded

A kettle is useful in prison – you can boil an egg in it and pour porridge over it. However, depending on behavior, some convicts are allowed to buy certain products that others cannot. For example, eggs, pasta.

However, since different prisons used to have different procedures, even after the reform, some convicts could buy tastier food, even if the law forbade it.

When it was finally banned, they began to demand it in various ways: through hunger strikes, threatening to injure themselves.

Some time ago, the authorities relented to eight life convicts in Marijampole prison. And allowed to buy what they want.

“Those cases of self-harm lead nowhere. But when concessions are made, it sets a bad precedent. <...> This can also cause mass unrest in all institutions. Why can eight people starve, but not five thousand”, the head of the security management department of the Vilnius prison told LNK news. Darius Čekavičius.

So far, there have been no further disturbances, and the Prison authorities hope that they will not.

“I think that for this, convict councils operate in every prison, which are the voice of convicts. And it is precisely that rationality and adequacy that should be preserved and maintained”, the Director of the Lithuanian Prison Service assured Virginijus Kulikauskas.

The head of the service does not agree that the convicts were let down.

“After consulting with the prison administration, we made the decision to make a kind of pause. This is not a retreat or a concession, as is now heard in the press. And just a pause to assess the essence and perfection of the legal act”, explained V. Kulikauskas.

However, the officers’ trade union does not imagine the situation any other way and says that prison workers suffer because of such concessions.

“A few people came up with it and just got theirs.” I think that the signal to the entire community of officers is very wrong. It is a pity that the attention of the Ministry of Justice is not focused on the officers, but the priority is probably on the convicts”, said Loreta Soščekienė, the chairwoman of the Federation of Lithuanian Law Enforcement Officers, to LNK.

According to L. Soščekienė, although the prison reform was adopted this year, Ministry of Justice did not fully regulate the laws and were not able to fully determine what is really possible and what is not.

“That the officers are put in such a position that if you don’t give the convict, they take all kinds of measures, injure themselves and so on. And in reality, the law does not allow it. And the officer, if he allows it, can be punished himself”, said L. Soščekienė, chairperson of the Federation of Lithuanian Law Enforcement Officers.

“The decision is taken Lithuanian Prison Service, not the Ministry of Justice. Regulation is implemented by the Lithuanian Prison Service and its officers. If, in the opinion of the service, it is necessary to assess whether the same procedure is applied in all prisons, then I am sure that the Prison Service will do that,” said the minister.

The Lithuanian Prison Service promises to submit proposals on how to regulate what prisoners can and cannot do within a few weeks.

In turn, the Seimas opposition is indignant that Freedom Partywhich is also represented by the Minister of Justice, protects the interests of prisoners too much.

Opposition representative Agnė Širinskienė presented a post made by the representative of the Freedom Party, Morgana Daniele, on the prisoners’ Facebook group.

“In it, she very actively talks about how to avoid bailiffs, how to reach the statute of limitations, so that simply prisoners do not pay administrative fines.” Apparently, they are working with the electorate and it is expected that at least the prisoners will vote”, MP A. Širinskienė explained her position.

Laisvieta M. Danielė told LNK news that it is “terrible that the opposition talks like that”.

“This is informing citizens about the changed legislation. Vulnerable groups of persons have the most questions about bailiffs, it is really very difficult for them to understand the laws and their clerical census,” she assured.

While politicians argue, according to trade unions, in the Lithuanian prison service, which should have 3.5 thousand. employees, as many as 700 are missing.

See the full LNK news report here: