State Prison to be opened by the end of May?

After all the facilities of the state prison in Vojkovici near Sarajevo have been built, work on external and internal planning is currently under the way, and all works are expected to be completed by the end of May.

The official opening of the object, which occupies 24,000 m², 348 cells, of which 298 for prisoners and 50 for detainees, will be opened in May.

Every cell where will be located prisoners, will occupy a total area of about 12 m². The beginning of the construction of the high security institution in which the convicts will be serving their prison sentence lasted for very long. The first works officially started on the 22^nd of July, 2014. After a slow and painful beginning, masters, engineers and construction workers are working on the prison almost every day of the week in the last year.

“State prison is one of the few objects that has no problem with the financial part. The money is secured and everything is going as planned. The works have been intensified in the last two months,” said Strahilo Subasic, head of the construction site in the name of the company OHL ZS, which is the general contractor.

The cells will not have grid as it is a common practice in prisons, but large windows with bulletproof glass. In the corner of each cell will be installed air-conditioning, and in a small bathroom will be shower, a small sink and toilet. Each floor of the object will have rooms for non-smokers, as well as special rooms for visitors. There will be also special cells for disabled persons and persons with developmental disabilities.

On one side of object will be placed the so called bedrooms with access to the garden. Prisoners will be able to use the Internet, library, sports facilities, and the construction of a large restaurant is currently taking place. The usage of cell phones will be banned. What is interesting is that there will be no workshops within the prison, where prisoners are usually engaged in creative work.

It is especially important to emphasize that the state prison will be secured according to the highest possible safety standards.

“The security system will be at the highest levels, so that there will be no possibility of escape. The prison was designed in accordance with the best safety standards in Europe and the world,” said the Director of the Unit for the construction of the state prison, Zoran Basic.

Since BiH has the problem of overcrowded detention facilities, the plan is to relieve the entity capacities.