Minister of Justice at the Council of Ministers, Josip Grubesa, said that the first prisoners in Vojkovic prison will enter in May or June next year.
Grubesa told N1 that the prison had been put into operation and that it was now up to the officials to tender a tender for the admission of employees, followed by training and then the arrival of the first prisoners.
“Dynamics allow us to be that way. We now have a warden who will work in prison. According to our procedures, the competition should not last more than four months because there are no more obstacles,” said Grubesa.
Even though, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), at the proposal of the Ministry of Justice, has issued a Decision on establishing the date of start of work of the Institute for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions, Detention and Other Measures of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which begins to work on August 1st, 2019, but this did not happen.
In this way, the costs that the country has so far allocated to the prisoners’ custodial authorities will be reduced and the prison will be opened for the first prisoners.
The object occupies 24,000 m2, 348 cells, of which 298 for prisoners and 50 for detainees.
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 22nd 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.
