The problem of minors in penitentiaries requires an inter-institutional approach involving a number of stakeholders. The Ministry of Health is preoccupied with the minors’ state of health. “All the minor detainees younger than 18 are insured by the state and are part of the health insurance system. They benefit from the whole package of medical services,” Zinaida Bezverhni, secretary of state at the Ministry of Health, stated in public hearings centering on the rights of children in jails, staged by the Parliament’s commission on human rights and interethnic relations.
The problems that appear are related to the movement of children to specialists or vice versa, primarily to the access to diagnostic services. The prisoners, including the minor ones, form part of the national tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C control program and benefit from medicines covered by this program. The shortage of medical staff is a problem for the whole public health system. Additional measures should be taken to motivate the graduates of medical institutions to work at penitentiaries.
Secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice Veronica Mihailov noted that the Penal Code and the Penal Procedure Code are to be amended next year by reviewing particular categories of offenses and the status of minors and young people aged between 18 and 21 so as to humanize the penal policy.
Among the Ministry of Justice’s proposals presented by Veronica Mihailov is the recommendation for the minors to be taken out of the penal sphere and to be referred to social services to the maximum extent possible. The Ministry encourages the alternative solving of all the criminal cases by using mediation before the cases are sent to court.
The functionary said that through the National Probation Inspectorate, the Ministry of Justice tries to encourage the courts of law, when they receive cases concerning minors, to consider the possibility of applying probation programs or other educative measures. The legislation should be improved, but the capacities of progressions who come in contact with minors in conflict with the law should also be improved.
