EPTA’s Special Interest Groups publish training manuals (March, 2021)

Over the last two years, the three Special Interest Groups (SIGs) developed training manuals on Leadership & Management, Dynamic Security and Managing Difficult Inmates. These training manual reports are translated into English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Each topic contains three different manuals, best practices, recommendation of minimum standards and a training handbook.

Click on the topics below to view the training manuals:

SIG 1: Leadership / Management

SIG 2: Dynamic security

SIG 3: Managing difficult inmates

The Best Practices reports provide penitentiary training academies with current examples of promising training practices regarding the respective topic. These include examples from the Special Interest Group members’ institutions but also from other EPTA member countries. The examples presented aim to illustrate the different European approaches to training on the respective topics and serve as an inspiration to other training academies.

The Minimum Standards reports outline the basic requirements for penitentiary training on the respective topic, based on international rules and regulations as well as the expertise of the Special Interest Group members. We recommend members to follow the set standards in the development and implementation of penitentiary staff training on the respective topics.

The Training Handbooks provide practical advice and guidance for penitentiary training academies to develop and implement penitentiary staff training based on the insights reflected in the Good Practices and Minimum Standards reports. The Handbooks aims to serve as a practical tool for training academies across Europe to be used and adapted according to the local needs and context.

Publication and compilation of these document were made possible with the financial support of the European Union’s Justice Programme (2014- 2020), as part of the project ‘Tackling Gaps in Cross-Border Cooperation for Penitentiary Training Academies’, which was coordinated by the Netherlands Helsinki Committee (NHC).