Prisons in Lithuania and United Kingdom

There are differences and similarities between prisons in U.K. and Lithuania .There are 160 prisons in U.K. and there was about 85000 prisoners last year. In Lithuania there is just one prison, and 17 correctional institutions where are about 11 000 prisoners.
Prisoners are divided into A,B,C,D categories in U.K. :

• Category A: prisoners whose escape would be highly dangerous
• Category B: prisoners who don’t need extreme security but for whom escape must be difficult.
• Category C: prisoners not trusted in open conditions but without the ability to escape.
• Category D: prisoners trusted to serve their sentences in open conditions

In Lithuania there are 3 prisoners' groups inside the jail: simple, light and disciplinary group. Living conditions are much better in U.K. Inmates live in cells where are toilets ,they are allowed TV's ,computers ,record-players. All prisoners have sport facilities,also there are multi-faith centres ,where prisoners of different religions can profess one's faith. There are 11 proprietary prisons in U.K. It means ,that prison reside in private firm ,for instance ''CCA". There was ideas to try establish such prison in Lithuania too, but government refused it for the meantime, because it would be very complicated.

The biggest problem in Lithuania is that there are too much inmates in prisons .Prison Departament got 183 million litas last year .But this amount of money is to little for all prisons, prison officers and inmates to keep. Also, there are lack of prison officers in Lithuania. They earn just about 1000 litas per month, and officers in U.K. earn about 33,500 pounds a year, it is about 13 000 litas per month .But they call themselves ''forgotten service" too ,because prices are very high in U.K. and their job is very hard and dangerous.

Education is available for all prisoners in U.K. and in Lithuania too. There are much more various educational programs in U.K. Inmates can learn from ABC to college's studies ,use computers, learn foreign languages. Prisoners can get secondary education in Lithuania too. Also there are project ,which provide chance to study at university too .For instance ,there are three prisoners in Lukiškės prison ,who study at Vilnius Pedagogical University.

To sum up, I would like to say that our government should learn from other countries penitentiary systems (from United Kingdom too) and try search new , innovative ways how to solve problems in prisons.