Victims of domestic violence may soon be under a greater and a more effective protection once the electronic system of domestic violence protection is in operation, one which monitors in real time the movement of the victim and the abuser and whether the abuser had come too close to the victim.
The system, which was presented today at the District Prison in Belgrade, could have a wider application, i.e. it could be used to prevent violence at sports fields by prohibiting the hooligans to access the facilities hosting sporting events.
Reminding everyone that Serbia had its first Outside-Penitentiary Measures and Penalties
Enforcement Act in May 2014, the Minister of Justice – Nikola Selakovic emphasised that the introduction of an electronic prevention system placed Serbia amongst the first five European countries striving to significantly reduce violence and protect potential victims from relapsed violent behaviour through the use of this [system] equipment.
“We are piloting the project without a single dinar [invested] which will show whether our country [actually] requires the system. We find this to be an important improvement considering that the thus far method of control over the enforcement of these measures was far too exposed to ridicule and far too easy to be avoided”, said Selakovic.
Also presented today was a system used to control the prohibition of the measure of alcohol consumption by persons who had committed certain criminal offences while being under the influence of alcohol, something that – as Selakovic put it – had up until now been at a 19th century standard.
Namely, a person ordered the mandatory measure of alcoholism treatment by the court shall have to get tested [for alcohol levels] on a specialised machine at a precise time at his/her home. This would be similar to the alco-test used by the traffic police officers, but different in that this machine has a camera and would send the data received automatically to the monitoring centre of the Penalties Enforcement Directorate.
The operator in the monitoring centre would then check, based on the received camera photos, whether the machine was used by the person on whom the measure had been imposed or by another person in his/her stead, while at the same time analysing the percentage of alcohol in the blood of that person.
It was still unknown when the new machines for the prevention of domestic violence and the enforcement of the alcoholism treatment measure would begin to be used. However, Minister Selakovic explained that the allocation of funds was being planned for the 2017 Budget.
“We will propose to have the procurement of this extremely sophisticated and expensive equipment included in the 2017 Budget. After the pilot project, we will determine the extent to which our courts of law are ordering such measures and the number of the equipment required, to then continue promoting this method of penalty enforcement to the best of our financial capacity”, Selakovic stated.