Instead of penitentiary institution, convicts will serve punishment at home or will participate in educational programmes through community service — this is the policy adopted by the Ministry of Justice to make the transition from punitive justice to resocialising justice by improving the institution of probation

Within the scope of the reforms of the Probation Service, a public discussion on the transformation of the Probation Service was held with the participation of Deputy Minister of Justice Arpine Sargsyan.

In her opening speech, Deputy Minister Sargsyan stated that the Probation Service is an institution that performs an important function in the chain of justice which, by providing an alternative to imprisonment, is able to work with the offender while he or she is in society. She noted that currently, there are more expectations from the Probation Service and that the latter will exercise a number of new powers in the near future, ensuring, for instance, execution of home arrest as a measure of restraint, restriction of freedom as a type of punishment, and consequently, the Probation Service must be provided with guarantees that are adequate to those expectations.

In the context of the above-mentioned, Arpine Sargsyan touched upon the legislative package of the law on the Probation Service and related laws developed based on the list of actions arising from the Programme of the Government; the legislative package proposes to change the status of the Probation Service, to make a transition to a special type of state service, to ensure the mechanisms of counterbalances and restraints from the perspective of organisation of the Service, to increase the social guarantees of probation officers, thus creating quality prerequisites for the development of the institution of probation in the Republic of Armenia.

Sargsyan recorded the fact that the transformation of the Probation Service is not limited to the introduction of a legislative package; solutions are being developed that will help to increase effectiveness of organisation of the Probation Service and will resolve the issue of consolidated and proper representation of the Probation Service in all marzes of the Republic of Armenia.

Director of Civil Society Institute NGO Artak Kirakosyan and Head of the Probation Service Gevorg Simonyan also delivered their opening speeches, Head of the Department of Criminal Legislation, Penitentiary and Probation Policy Development at the Ministry of Justice Garik Abelyan and international expert Leo Tikhkhes delivered a report.

An active and substantive discussion on the vision for transformation of the Probation Service and on the legislative initiative put up for public discussion was held with the participation of interested government agencies, non-governmental organisations and other institutions.

At the end of the meeting, an agreement was reached to consider the verbal and written opinions that were presented and to improve the legislative proposal by taking those opinions into consideration.

The public discussion was organised upon the joint initiative of the Ministry of Justice and Civil Society Institute NGO, through funding provided by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.