Armenian parliament is discussing new Penitentiary Code.

"In 2021, the Armenian parliament has already adopted drafts of two codes - criminal and criminal procedure. They will come into force on July 1 of this year," Deputy Minister of Justice Arpine Sargsyan told during the parliament's session on Thursday.

The third important code, according to her, is the penitentiary one. The current Penitentiary Code, as Sargsyan noted, was adopted back in 2004.

“Since then, a lot has changed both in Armenia itself and in international practice. As a result, a new document is needed. The whole logic of the new code is that it is necessary to carry out individual work with each convict. For each convict, an individual plan for serving the sentence will be drawn up. It should be reviewed every 3-6 months,” the Deputy Minister explained.

The second innovation is to eliminate the artificial separation of executive agencies. They were divided into open, semi-open, closed and therapeutic.

There will also be 3 security levels - low, medium and high.

“The distribution of convicts will depend on the degree of their danger. In each zone, depending on the behavior of the convict, additional soft and hard conditions of detention will be introduced. Instead of a medical penitentiary, inpatient and outpatient departments will be established in each prison,” Sargsyan noted.