840 euros a month for a prisoner, Kosovo has prisons as hotels

About 840 euros is the amount of money a prisoner spends on the state every month. That figure amounts to up to 10,000 and 80 euros a year for a prisoner. According to an estimate for all prisoners, the poorest state in the region spends more than 15m euros for a year. And in the past three years, nearly 50m euros have been spent from the state wallet

Life in Kosovo prisons is more like the life that is done in hotels. Three times a day of meat, trees, vegetables, and juices from various fruits and teas is the daily menu that prisoners in the country feed daily.

For all these needs, a prisoner costs the state about 840 euros a month, a figure that amounts to up to 10 thousand euros at the end of the year, writes The Express.

At the Kosovo Correcting Service (SHKK), they have said that currently behind the bars there are 1,000 and 569 people. Of them are 48 women.

USKK Information Official Jeton Kabashi has told Gazeta Express that daily expenses for a prisoner amount to about 28 euros a day.

“Daily expenses for a prisoner reach around 28 euros a day, while monthly or annual expenditures depend on the admissions or releases of prisoners”, Kabashi has said.

But according to a simple estimate, for only one year the needs of prisoners from the state budget are spent around 15m euros.

And since the number of prisoners in the last three years has not changed is that for three years only those behind bars for various criminal acts have been spent about 50m euros.

All these prisoners feed three times a day. Kabashi says the daily menu was changed every month. But they always feed on meat products, trees, vegetables, and teas.

There is a daily menu for prisons that changes every month, where prisoners feed three times a day on foods different from meat products, with trees and vegetables, juices from various fruits and teas”, says Kabashi's answers.

For the large number of expenses to be imprisoned, they had also responded to the Human Rights and Freedoms Council.

The institution had demanded that the number of detainees be reduced and courts do not impose this measure on any case. According to them, the state budget would be spared in this way.

“We, like KMDLNJ, have demanded that the detention be as an extreme measure, namely, to save Kosovo's budget, because if a detainee is not in danger of escaping, then we don't know why he should be held in prison”, KMDLNJ Director Behxhet Shala had said.

In Kosovo, according to him, the number of employed prisoners is very small, and for that reason it is even more costly to keep a person deprived of freedom than in other countries.

Setting detention as the most extreme security measure for a suspect or for an accused has also cost the Kosovo Judiciary Council budget.

Last year alone, the KDR has separated about half a million from its budget for compensation of 153 persons who have been held in custody, and following the court's ruling have been declared innocent.

Kabashi, meanwhile, has said the largest number of these people are arrested for theft, murder and robbery. Not even people who are serving the sentence for rape, injury, and drugs are missing.

There are 254 people only for the theft of the sentence, while more than 50 are in custody.

“Within the corrective institutions at the moment are serving punishment for the criminal acts of theft of 254 people, while for those works in custody at the moment there are a total of 51 persons”, said by the USKK, days earlier for the Journal Express.

Currently, the highest sentence imposed on Kosovo prisons is that of 40 years of freedom.