Table of Contents
T0. Summary ... 144 T1. National profile ... 144 T1.2 Drug use and related problems among prisoners ... 146 T1.3 Drug-related health responses in prisons ... 149 T1.4 Quality assurance of drug-related health prison responses ... 151 T2. Trends. Not applicable for this workbook... 151 T3. New developments ... 151 T4. Additional information ... 151 T5. Notes and queries ... 151 T6. Sources and methodology ... 151
T0. Summary
National profile
The Prison Administration of the Republic of Slovenia, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice, is an authority in charge of enforcing criminal sanctions and organizing and operating the country's prison system, which comprises correctional facilities ("prisons") and a juvenile correctional facility.
Slovenia has six prisons, with facilities in 13 locations, and one juvenile correctional facility. The prison regimes come in three varieties – closed, semi-open, and open – with varying degrees of restrictions being the main difference between them. There are four main categories of prisoners: convict (a person found criminally liable by a final (res judicata) judgment), remand prisoner (a person temporarily remanded in custody due to ongoing criminal proceedings), convicted juvenile delinquent (a person under 18 who has been found criminally liable by a final (res judicata) judgment) and juvenile placed in a correctional facility (young adolescents aged 14 to 21 who have been sentenced to the correctional measure of placement in a correctional facility, where they can be held up to the age of 23).
Inmates with a drug problem are entitled to receive the same level of medical care in terms of accessibility and quality as they would get outside of prison. Upon admission to a correctional facility, every person undergoes a medical examination at a prison surgery. If a drug addiction is identified, the physician determines whether a medication therapy is needed to ease withdrawal symptoms and/or prescribes a substitution, or replacement, therapy. Medical services as part of the drug use treatment for inmates are provided by primary health care centres with psychiatry specialists and physicians from the Centres for the Prevention and Treatment of Illicit Drug Addiction. Apart from medical services, drug addiction treatment also includes individual and group counselling and psychosocial support programs led by qualified professionals on-site. Inmates with a drug problem may enroll in low-threshold, higher-threshold and high-higher-threshold programs during their prison term. All inmates have access to free, voluntary and anonymous testing and treatment for hepatitis and HIV. Condoms, latex gloves and disinfectants are made available to them.
In 2015, a little over one-fifth (21.5%) of the country's entire prison population suffered from an illicit drug use problem, of which 76% were receiving substitution therapy. In all, 190 prisoners decided to get tested for HIV and hepatitis; seven of them tested positive for hepatitis B, 18 for hepatitis C.
New developments
A Survey on the Use of Drugs, Tobacco and Alcohol, targeting the prison population aged 19 and over and with a conviction, was carried out across the country's prisons in 2015. The survey results have shown that during the prison term a little less than one-quarter of the convicted inmates used an illicit drug at some point in their life, 15.1% of them used an illicit drug in the last 12 months, and 6.8% in the last 30 days. The most widely used drugs were cannabis, heroin and cocaine. 1.9% of the convicted inmates reported having injected an illicit drug during their prison term; the most frequently injected drugs were cocaine and heroin.
T1. National profile
T1.1.1 Overview of prison services Eva Salecl Božič
The Prison Administration, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Slovenia, is an authority in charge of enforcing criminal sanctions and organizing and operating the country's
prison system, which comprises correctional facilities ("prisons") and a juvenile correctional facility.
Slovenia has six prisons, with facilities in 13 locations, and one juvenile correctional facility:
Central prisons:
Dob Prison, for male convicts serving a term longer than 18 months; Dob Prison also includes the semi-open unit Slovenska vas and the semi-open unit Puščava. Prisoner accommodation capacity: Dob Prison:
449, Slovenska vas semi-open unit: 70, and Puščava open unit: 21.
Ig Prison, for women convicts regardless of the length of the prison term, women prisoners in custody, and female juvenile delinquents sentenced to juvenile detention. Prisoner accommodation capacity: 86.
Celje Prison and Juvenile Prison for convicts, remand prisoners and minors sentenced to juvenile detention. Prisoner accommodation capacity: 98.
Regional prisons (for prison terms of up to 1 year and 6 months) with branch units:
Koper Prison for convicts serving a term of more than 1 year and remand prisoners; Koper Prison also includes the Nova Gorica unit for convicts serving a term of up to 6 months and for remand prisoners.
Prisoner accommodation capacity: Koper Prison: 110, Nova Gorica unit: 28.
Ljubljana Prison and the Novo mesto unit for convicts and remand prisoners; the Ig open unit for convicts, operating as part of Ljubljana Prison. Ljubljana Prison and its Novo mesto unit house convicted prisoners serving up to one year and up to six months respectively. Prisoner accommodation capacity:
Ljubljana Prison: 135, Novo mesto unit: 35, Ig open unit: 27.
Ljubljana Prison and the Novo mesto unit for convicts and remand prisoners; the Ig open unit for convicts, operating as part of Ljubljana Prison. Maribor Prison and its Murska Sobota unit house convicted prisoners serving more than six months and up to six months respectively. Prisoner accommodation capacity: Maribor Prison: 146, Murska Sobota unit: 34, Rogoza open unit: 36.
Radeče Correctional Facility for juveniles of both sexes sentenced to the correctional measure of placement in a correctional facility. Prisoner accommodation capacity: 47.
The prison regimes come in three varieties – open, semi-open, and closed – with varying degrees of restrictions being the main difference between them.
Prisoners are categorized as follows:
− Convict: a person found criminally liable by a final (res judicata) court judgment.
− Remand prisoner: a person temporarily remanded in custody due to ongoing criminal proceedings.
− Convicted juvenile delinquent: a person under 18 who has been found criminally liable by a final (res judicata) court judgment.
− Juvenile placed in a correctional facility: young adolescents of both sexes aged 14 to 21 who have been sentenced to the correctional measure of placement in a correctional facility, where they can be held up to the age of 23.
At the beginning of 2015, Slovenian prisons held 2,817 convicted prisoners (note that this figure only applies to convicted prisoners, not the entire prison population), predominantly (94%) men, with the highest proportion aged between 28 and 39 years (Table 1).
Table 1. Convicted prisoners by gender and age, 2015
At 1 Jan. Newly admitted All At 1 Jan. Newly admitted All
M F M F M (%) F (%) M (%) F (%)
18+ to 23 years 48 2 91 2 143 4.3 3.1 5.9 2.0 5.1
23+ to 27 years 119 4 186 14 323 10.7 6.2 12.1 14.1 11.5
27+ to 39 years 483 20 763 35 1301 43.5 30.8 49.4 35.4 46.2
39+ to 49 years 248 14 299 29 590 22.3 21.5 19.4 29.3 20.9
49+ to 59 years 136 13 140 12 301 12.3 20.0 9.1 12.1 10.7
59+ to 69 years 65 10 56 6 137 5.9 15.4 3.6 6.1 4.9
69+ years 11 2 8 1 22 1.0 3.1 0.5 1.0 0.8
Total 1110 65 1543 99 2817 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Prison Administration of the Republic of Slovenia