On Tuesday, Parliament passed the new Penitentiary Code including an objective to make prisons self-sufficient.

Consisting of 438 sections on 192 pages, the code will enter into force on 1 January 2015 as a part of the comprehensive justice reform. This will be the first Act to regulate modern criminal enforcement in Hungary as the code will replace a decree law passed in 1979 and successively amended ever since. Passed with 251 ayes, 47 nays and 43 abstentions, the law will introduce a new risk analysis and management system to reduce the number of repeat offenders and to promote the social reintegration of convicts by classifying them, monitoring their personality changes and regularly reviewing previous decisions. The new code will considerably decrease the saturation of overcrowded county prisons.

1 January 2016 will see the inauguration of the Central Institute for Inquiry and Methodology. This institution will decide on the placement of convicts sentenced to at least 1.5 years of imprisonment. They will stay at the facility for a month while professionals prepare their summary risk analysis and specify the tasks required for reducing the risk of recidivism. The code will maintain the rule, passed after the 2010 change of government, that convicts must work, except for those that are disabled, have attained school age, retirement age or 6 months of pregnancy, and supporting their children. Work performed by convicts must be organised with a view to making the penitentiary institution self-sufficient and partly self-maintaining. Convicts must contribute to their detention costs to a greater extent, but the daily amount of said contribution may not be lower than one percent of their monthly basic salary. (The basic salary must reach at least one-third of the minimum wage.)

Convicts must reimburse the costs of willful health impairment and the injuries they cause, but must mandatorily pay for laundry and additional services such as the use of an immersion heater or fridge.
Another innovation is that convicts must generate a higher reserve of their salaries or regular benefits than before in order to prepare for their eventual release.

The code will assign three regime categories to each degree of enforcement with milder and stricter rules which primarily determine the movement of convicts inside prisons, keeping cell doors open or closed, and contact with the outside. Placement in any regime category will primarily depend on each convict’s classification by security and recidivism risks, conduct and progress in the reintegration programmes.

In addition, the code will impose stricter rules on the right of convicts to make statements.

A new element lays down the basic principles of imprisonment. Solitary confinement, more efficient training and employment for convicts, the provision of conditions required for a law-abiding lifestyle after release, and the development of self-sufficient prisons will play a bigger role than before. Another innovation is that the victims of violent offences, such as crimes against sexual morals, may be notified of the release of their aggressors.

Tibor Navracsics, Minister of Public Administration and Justice, explained it was timely to prepare the new code due to not only social changes but also to the adoption of the new Criminal Code (CC) as of 1 July and to the experiences of recent years. In addition, it is a rule of law requirement to finally regulate the deprivation and limitation of personal liberty at the highest legislative level, i.e. as an Act, he noted.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)