The Armenian government plans to introduce next year house arrest and community service as legal alternatives to imprisonment of criminal suspects and convicted individuals, a senior official revealed on Friday.
Deputy Justice Minister Suren Krmoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that electronic monitoring of such persons will be another major provision of amendments to Armenian criminal legislation which the government hopes to push through the parliament this autumn.
“The state is embarking on these reforms in order to reduce the number of incarcerated people,” Krmoyan said. “Arrest and short-term imprisonment should be applied in exceptional cases where there are no effective alternatives.”
He added that the reform is strongly supported by and coordinated with the Council of Europe.
More than 4,000 people are currently kept in Armenia’s prisons and detention facilities. According to Krmoyan, roughly 1,300 of them will be eligible for the probation service if it is introduced as planned in January 2016.
Armenian law-enforcement bodies and courts have long been criticized for routinely keeping suspects in detention pending investigation. Pointing to suspects’ widespread ill-treatment in pre-trial custody, human rights groups say that the Soviet-era practice makes it much easier for the police and prosecutors to extract confessions under duress or psychological pressure.
Artur Sakunts, who leads one such group based in the northern Armenian city of Vanadzor, cautiously welcomed the planned reform. “Just how they will put the idea into practice is a different question,” said Sakunts. “Unfortunately, poor implementation can wreck any good plan.”
In Krmoyan’s words, probation will not only be a major safeguard against human rights abuses but also allow the government to save 1.4 billion drams ($3 million) in annual expenditures on penitentiary institutions.