On Tuesday, 13 June 2023, the international conference “Custodial Sentence: Motivation to Execute. Motivation to Serve” was opened by Inese Libina-Egnere, Minister of Justice, and introductory speeches given by Dmitrijs Kalins, Head of Latvian Prison Administration, and Imants Jurevicius, Head of the State Probation Service.
At the conference, the role of motivation in the sentence execution process was viewed and evaluated from various aspects.
For two days conference visitors and experts discussed both the tools available to prison staff to motivate prisoners, and the staff’s motivation to motivate those under their supervision, especially those prisoners who are not inclined to positive changes.
Both local experts and foreign guest speakers from Norway and the United Kingdom were widely represented at the conference. Aija Strazda, Project Manager of the Latvian Red Cross, shared the knowledge of non-governmental organization, motivating the population at risk of social exclusion and discrimination, while Krista Skara, Head of Probation Programmes Department of the State Probation Service, focused on the topic of self-motivation and prison volunteers shared their experience of motivating society to work with prisoners and former prisoners and other offenders.
Christian Mjoland, Assoc.Prof. in Sociology, from the University of Agder, Norway, explained the basic theory on the rehabilitation of offenders for honest and good life, while Neal Hazel, Prof. of Criminology and criminal justice science, from the University of Salford in the United Kingdom, discussed barriers and resistance and how best demonstrate to convicts that the intervention and support of penal institutions work in their long-term interests?
Other thematic section was devoted to the public involvement in these processes.
The conference was also attended by Latvian Prison Administration Central Office employees, leading researchers of the ESF project, heads of Latvian prisons, representatives of Resocialization Departments, psychologists and social employees as well as volunteers.
Conference was organized within the framework of the Latvian Prison Administration and the European Social Fund project “Raising the Efficiency of Resocialisation System” (ID No.:9.1.3.0/16/I/001).