Lithuania’s prisons face systemic infrastructure problems, says corrections chief

All of Lithuania’s prisons suffer from outdated and inadequate infrastructure, the head of the country’s Prison Service has admitted, following calls from a professional union to address critical conditions at Pravieniškės Correctional Facility.

Mindaugas Kairys, director of the Prison Service, acknowledged that aging Soviet-era facilities across the system fail to meet modern standards. “I’d say we have these problems in all our prisons,” Kairys told LRT Radio on Tuesday, noting that while renovation plans exist, implementation depends on funding.

“We’re operating in post-Soviet infrastructure—eight prisons with separate divisions—where conditions in some areas are truly outdated and don’t align with contemporary penal policies,” he said. Kairys cited ongoing renovations where funding is available but stressed that financial constraints limit broader upgrades.

He pointed to a new prison in Latvia as a benchmark for modern standards, contrasting it with Lithuania’s current realities: “That’s the direction we should aim for, but we work with what we have.”