Armenian Prison Officials Hope To Learn From Wisconsin’s Prison System

Prison officials from Armenia are in in Wisconsin this month for a training seminar on how to better process, classify and eventually parole inmates.

Armenia decided to partner with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) because of its centralized system for classifying prisoners when they enter the prison, and then preparing them for release from the moment they begin serving their sentences. Nikolay Arustamyan of the Armenian Ministry of Justice is leading the team. Speaking through an interpreter, he says the seminar will help prison staff who will work in a new state-of-the-art prison the government is building that will use cell block units – unlike the barrack-style prisons the country now uses.

“What we’re getting is a very intensive hands-on learning – immersion-type learning – through the security staff, social workers and psychologists working together on a unit.”

Wisconsin prison staff are also learning something from their Armenian counterparts. DOC policy advisor Tony Streveler says he’s impressed by the difference between the sentencing policies in the two countries. He says the maximum prison sentence in Armenia is 25 years…

“Whereas here we have a large population of lifers. We have a lot more elderly inmates here, and the issues associated with that such as the medical and health needs – just the ambulatory needs that they have, where they’re not necessarily faced with that in the management of their institutions.”

The Armenian team is spending time at two Wisconsin prisons and one county jail through a program funded by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Law Enforcement Affairs. They plan to return next year to learn more about electronic monitoring as they begin to institute a system of probation for nonviolent offenders as a way of reducing prison overcrowding.