YEREVAN. – The government of Armenia approved today the strategy and action plan for the country’s penitentiary and probation domains for 2019-2023.

As per Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan, accordingly, several areas of reform have been identified.

According to the Minister, within the framework of the improvement of the prison conditions and optimization of penitentiaries, it is planned - among some other plans - to close several prisons and the Convicts’ Hospital in Yerevan, and to build several new prisons.

Badasyan noted that the cost of the program is about 49.549 billion drams, the lion's share of which is capital expenditures for the construction of new penitentiaries. “We have discussed in advance; there will be funding from the state budget,” he said. “But there will also be assistance from international donors; at this point, the negotiations are continuing.”