About PO21

Context

In Europe, there are more than 588 940 citizens imprisoned. Everyday, more than 203 772 prison officers work to ensure safety to society and to provide inmates with opportunities that ease their reintegration process back to society. Prison officers have to respond to complex phenomena that often lead to the degradation of the material conditions of detention. Overcrowding; extremism and in-prison radicalisation; gangs and organised crime; inmates’ mental illness; and increasingly dangerous behaviours; are some of the challenges that PO face.
Despite this, prison officers lack proper initial and continuous training. The situation in Europe evidences a big difference in policies and practice inhibiting the mobility of professionals between Member-states and hindering the implementation of the Framework decisions on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments in criminal matters. The situation has been recently acknowledged both by the European Parliament and by the Council of Europe, who call for urgent action.  
The present and future challenges that prison officers face require a different set of skills and behaviours than the ones for which they have been trained. There is an urgent need to agree on the initial and continuous vocational education and training that should be provided to prison officers in the future. 
The current and future challenges that a prison officer faces everyday require a different set of skills and behaviours than the ones for which they have been trained. There is also an urgent need to agree on the initial and continuous vocational education and training that should be provided to prison officers in the future, regarding the learning objectives, content, length of the training courses, and recognition of competences that may foster mobility throughout the European Union.

Objectives

Developed by sectoral representatives (prison administrations, trade unions, VET and research organisations, and representatives of correctional private and public sector members), the PO 21_ European Prison Officers for the 21st Century project aimed to:
​

• Develop a strategic approach to sectorial skills development through the creation of a partnership for the sustainable cooperation between prison administrations and correctional academies, trade unions, and other sectoral representatives;
  
  
• Identify existing and emerging skills needs for prison officers, also feeding this intelligence into the European skills panorama;
  
  
• Strengthen the exchange of knowledge and practice between education and training institutions and correctional sector actors;
  
  
• Promote relevant sectoral qualifications and support agreement for their recognition;
  
  
• Build mutual trust, facilitating cross-border certification and therefore easing professional mobility in corrections, and increasing recognition of qualifications at European level;
  
  
• Adapt vocational education and training provisions to skills needs, focusing both on prison officer job specific skills as well as on key competences;
  
  
• Promote qualification standards for work-based learning (range of knowledge, skills and competence that is to be achieved through wbl or learning on-the-job);
  ​
• Plan the progressive roll-out of project deliverables leading to systemic impact in the form of constant adaptation of VET provision to skill needs, based on sustained partnerships between providers and key labour market stakeholders at the appropriate level ("feedback loops");
  
  

A particular focus was given to digital skills since they are increasingly changing the operational activity of POs, as well as the way professionals relate with each other and relate with inmates in prisons.

Results

PO 21 aimed at creating a common well-adapted profile for Prison Officers today on an EU­-level, considering the rapid contextual changes in the prison environment, which require constant adaptation and cooperation with other partners. The expected impact of PO 21 was the following:

• For prison officers to be and feel better equipped when facing their everyday challenges;

• For prison officers to experience an improvement in their wellbeing and decreased levels of stress and burnout;

• For prison officers to enhance and improve their skills;

​

• For correctional academies (VET providers) to be better prepared to address the always evolving sector skills needs;

• For correctional academies to provide training which is continuous, up-to-date (according to the sector skills needs), and balanced (between security and support to rehabilitation and reintegration);

• For the adapted or new training curricula and qualifications to be formally recognised at EU-level;

• For policy-makers to be better equipped in the process of decision-making;

• At regional and national levels, it is expected that prison officers, alongside prison administrations, are better prepared to monitor and manage some of the challenges their prison systems may be facing.