Skopje, 4 October 2024 (MIA) - There is no need to pass an amnesty law with the sole purpose of reducing overcrowding in prisons, but there is a need for greater application of probation supervision. We have all this as a legal solution, and it should be applied more often, said Skopje-based Criminal Court judge, Biljana Kocevska, ahead of Friday's workshop on challenges in overcoming prison overcrowding.

According to Kocevska, judges should be encouraged to order probation supervision more, as well as the use of e-carceration because, she noted, the few amnesty laws that have been passed so far have not achieved the goal. They may be reducing overcrowding in prisons only temporarily, but in a very short time there is overcrowding in prisons again. 

"I believe that judges should really be encouraged to order probation more, so as to achieve the goal of not only reducing overcrowding, but also achieving the goal of the punishment, reducing recidivism, which will automatically reduce the prison population, i.e. the overcrowding," Kocevska pointed out.

She noted that as much as she supports the imposing of the alternative measure of probation supervision, as a member of the Criminal Council she is also a big a supporter of revoking probation in cases when convicts do not fulfil their obligations. 

"I can say that we already have several probation revocations because the convicts did not fulfil the obligations or conditions of the probationary sentence, i.e. the probation supervision, and only in this way we will be able to further contribute to changing the image that probationers have remained unpunished," said Kocevska. 

She noted that the Skopje-based Criminal Court has handed down many probationary sentences, stressing that there is very good cooperation with the probation service within the Criminal Court.

It is devastating, she added, that the number of probationary sentences ordered in other courts is one percent, if not zero.

Irena Zdravkova from the Macedonian Association of Young Lawyers, who are the organizers of today's workshop, pointed out that as an association they are in favour of probation and according to them, it is the future through which primarily recidivism will be reduced, and of course overcrowding as well.

Photo: MIA