One in nine prisoners serving their sentences or awaiting trial in Hungarian prisons is a trafficker.Continue reading
A plant for the production of environmentally friendly paving materials has been set up in Szeged Prison and Penitentiary in southern Hungary, a move that is in line with the circular economy, the Parliamentary Secretary of State of the Ministry of Interior said in Szeged on Wednesday.
Bence Rétvári emphasized that the government set a goal in 2010 that all prisoners of working age whose sentence allows them to work should contribute to the cost of their care. Continuous work helps prisoners to reintegrate into society, learn a profession, and to find a job in civilian life after their sentence is over, he said.
Brigadier General Tamás Farsang (L), Parliamentary Secretary of State Bence Rétvári, and Béla Mihálffy, Fidesz MP of the region (R) at the Szeged Prison and Penitentiary’s environmentally friendly paving factory.
In recent years, a growing number of businesses have been set up across the country, including sewing shops, bakeries, and printing shops, and in Szeged, a wood plastic composite (WPC) plant was set up. The fence elements produced here can be used in construction sites and gardens, are durable, and do not require painting or maintenance. They are made from recycled raw materials, from wood waste, broken pallets, and soft drink bottle lids, the Secretary of State said.
Brigadier General Tamás Farsang, deputy commander for economic and IT affairs of the Hungarian Prison Service, said that
today there are no prisoners in Hungarian detention centers who are kept solely in the prison ward, and that of the 19,000 or so prisoners, all those who are fit for work and have security requirements that allow them to work are working or studying.
The circular economy plant is not the only new project of the Hungarian Prison Service. As Hungary Today reported earlier, a housing estate of 17 homes for guards, built entirely by prisoners, was completed last December in the 10th district of Budapest, Kőbánya.
Rétvári, said that in the context of the energy crisis, the model project is very important. “With its housing program, the Ministry of the Interior is setting an example of how the state, with a well-organized back office operation, can create a housing program that can offer families – for example, as a service dwelling – a sixty-square-meter, comfortable, low-maintenance, low-impact, fully green dwelling with minimal environmental impact,” he said.
Featured photo via MTI/Rosta Tibor