When education transcends a prisons` bars, punishment becomes lore and time wins new valency. Thereby, given that evolution depends on knowledge, the Romanian prison system celebrates, day after day, education, this toilsome journey from darkness to light.
Seeing that an institution in wich custodial sentences are executed is effete without enforcing their educational function, The National Administration of Penitentiaries in Romania supports and encourages any initiative which aims to further the positive, attitude and behavioral change of the inmates, by improving their knowledge level as well as by understanding and internalizing nowadays social demands.
Part and parcel of the social reintegration process of the inmates, the instructive-educational segment pursues exactly the discernment of the human being inherent dualities, good and evil, beautiful and grotesque, ignorance and knowledge, giving the carceral universe the attribute of reconfiguring destinies. So, all inmates` executional routes begin with this premise, of changing demeanours through education, being provided, from the begining , with educational and tution activities and programs, til their last day behind the bars when the relay is handed off to the society.
In line with this goal, within the collaboration with the European Prison Education Association, starting from 2014 The National Administration of Penitentiaries in Romania celebrates, each octomber 13, The National Day of Education in Prison. The educational activities carried out continuously among the inmates gain a new echo on this day, highlighting the importance of the civil society`s involvment in all institutionalized approaches, whether we are refering to local personalities, art and culture institutions, educational institutions or ordinary people.
Through debates, thematic contests, lectures, special editions of prison magazines, occupational workshops, exhibitions, artistic moments, round tables and visits to the penitentiaries of students from schools in the community, prisoners manage to break down the barriers of social prejudices sustaining knowledge and communication. Based on the principle of institutional transparency, these manifestations are an excellent way to present to the public the efforts of the Romanian penitentiary system in promoting education in all its forms.
Directed to the recovery of the inmates, not only as an institutional requirement, but also as a human imperative, the educational activities carried out in the romanian penitentiaries aim to reduce the recidivism and the criminal phenomenon by doubling the perception of punishment and encumbrance with the notions of education, knowledge and beautiful.