Prison union rejects claims of inmate relationships, alleges staff persecution

The chair of the Vilnius correctional facility trade union, Darius Čekavičius, has rejected claims that several employees had romantic or intimate relationships with inmates, saying the allegations were not investigated or proven, LRT reports.

Čekavičius criticised the Lithuanian Prison Service for making the information public. He said employees were facing persecution instead of receiving timely support.

“We are talking about romantic and intimate relationships with inmates, although, according to the information we have, no investigations were carried out and the employees’ guilt was not established,” Čekavičius said.

He said staff had been left without adequate psychological assistance. When employees contacted Prison Service psychologists, they were told that one psychologist had left and another was on leave. A psychologist only arrived at the facility the previous day to counsel the employees who remained at work, he said.

Čekavičius said the information about relationships between employees and inmates had not been verified. He added that the employees in question had left the service voluntarily, and one of them had received severance pay.

“What violations can we talk about when no comprehensive investigations have been carried out?” Čekavičius said.

He said issues involving crossed boundaries and relationships within the prison system were not new, but claimed that no investigation had been conducted in this case.

A meeting of Vilnius prison employees was held in early August. Representatives of the Ministry of Justice and Lithuanian Prison Service chief Mindaugas Kairys were invited, but Kairys did not attend, Čekavičius said.

According to Čekavičius, employees did not receive answers to their questions, including what the departing colleagues had allegedly violated. The union has asked the ministry to establish a joint working group to address the staff’s concerns.

Čekavičius, who said he had worked in the system since 1997, described the current situation as unprecedented in its level of disorder. He alleged that employees were being persecuted and demotivated, with possible signs of workplace bullying, and said the departure of many experienced employees reflected the situation.

He also criticised the implementation of a dynamic security model recently adopted from Norway’s prison system. The model is based on normal, respectful, human interaction with inmates, but employees had questioned where the boundaries lay after seeing examples of inmates eating, drinking coffee, fishing and skiing with officers in Norwegian prisons, he said.

Loreta Soščekienė, chair of the Lithuanian Law Enforcement Officers’ Federation, said public statements had created the impression that the employees had been “given permission to leave without consequences.”