Visit to Norway’s largest prison under a GDEP project

10-03-2020 13:17

A delegation from the General Directorate Execution of Penalties /GDEP/, led by the Director General Commissioner Ivaylo Yordanov, visited the largest prison in Norway - Romerike.

The visit is in the framework of Activity 1.2 “Working visit to Norway for exchange of experience” under the project “Enhancing the capacity of prison staff, building a pilot prison facility, connected to a training center and improving the rehabilitation of prisoners” (PDP2) under the Justice Programme, Programme Area 19 of the NFM 2014-2021.  

The aim was to study the Norwegian practices in the field of construction of new prison facilities, in this regard the hosts explained in detail the structure of the prison and provided an opportunity to tour the main units of the penitentiary. On the GDEP side, the visit was attended by engineers, financial experts, experts in charge of security and safety systems, and training experts.

Romerike Prison has modern buildings equipped with modern CCTV and monitoring equipment. The newest wing was built in 2015, when Norway introduced the so-called “Model 2015” concept. Since the adoption of these guidelines, all new penitentiaries are built according to this model.

One of Romerike’s wings is a special division for practice - currently 20 trainees from the Norwegian Correctional Service’s University College are being trained in the field.

In Romerike, 72 foreign nationals of 34 nationalities are also serving sentences.