Minister of Justice, Nikola Selaković, visited today the renovated printing office in the complex of the Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Sremska Mitrovica in which the prisoners manufacture all office supplies for judicial authorities, and courts and public prosecutor's offices in Serbia have a possibility to purchase them below the market price.

The printing office has recently obtained a modern machine in whose purchase the government invested RSD 6.5 million, and currently 30 persons work with it, and soon it will start operating in its full capacity and engage a total of 100 prisoners.

The Minister of Justice pointed out that the amended Law on Public Procurements enabled our judicial authorities to buy the material from the Detention and Rehabilitation Center without going through public procurement procedures and below the market price.

Summons, envelopes, forms, delivery notes, file covers and everything else needed from the printed material for the work of judicial authorities will also be printed in the prison for all courts and all public prosecutor's offices, Selaković said.

According to him, while the old machine produced 10 to 12 thousand summons per day, the new machine produces more than 150,000 per day.

He pointed out that not only savings have been made in this way, but also the social reintegration of prisoners.

The renovation of the prison hospital in the prison complex is under way, and the Minister also visited today the new 6th pavilion with a capacity of 58 persons.

The Detention and Rehabilitation Center Sremska Mitrovica also has a horse farm with 36 Lipizzaners, cows, pigs, poultry, its own dairy farm and bakery.

In this prison, out of about 2,000 convicts serving a sentence, three-quarters are in a closed-type, strict prison regime, and one third in an open-type regime, and this is the only prison in Serbia in which foreigners also serve a sentence.

Hotel "Srem" employs 29 convicts sentenced either for minor offenses or ending the serving of their sentences and social reintegration process.

This Detention and Rehabilitation Center is a general-type institution, and by the degree of security, it falls into closed-type institutions with closed, semi-open, open divisions and detention division.

It was built by order of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franja Josif in the period between 1895 and 1899.

From the end of the World War II until 1941, the prison was part of the penal system of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and since the end of the World War II until today, it has been a part of the system for the execution of criminal sanctions of the SFRY, i.e. Republic of Serbia.

The Detention and Rehabilitation Center also includes Hotel “Moravica“ in Sokobanja with 12 convicts who work there.

Source: Tanjug