Justice Minister: Prison rent could bring the state over 30 million euros annually | News

Half of the places in Estonia’s prisons are empty. What alternative uses for prisons is the government discussing?

It is true that half of the seats are empty. And it is true that I have submitted a memo to the Cabinet for discussion to determine the direction of the solution to be taken forward. This discussion has not yet taken place.

There is talk of selling prisons, maintaining them and also of renting prison space to other countries.

These are three different options that would be technically feasible.

It is pointed out that if the building were sold, it would be difficult to use it for military purposes in the event of war.

In my personal opinion, selling the buildings would be the dumbest option. Firstly, a sale would create a situation in which it would be almost impossible to sell special properties in real life.

We have seen this in downtown Tallinn, with the difficulties in selling the old Tallinn prison, which has not been able to be sold for all these years. The old Tallinn prison is made of lighter brick buildings that are very easy to demolish. There are three new prisons being built in Estonia right now, mighty and massive ones, with significantly more concrete, and the cost of demolishing them would be absolutely absurd. However, if they were sold, they would have to be demolished because such special properties simply cannot be repurposed.

The sale would therefore inevitably result in a significant loss for the Estonian people. In the sense that we would never be able to recoup the money we invested. Not to mention that the state would probably have to build a new building soon. And we would have no place to house prisoners of war, for example, should the need arise.

Another important issue is the fact that serious crime is increasing in Europe. There are only four countries in the EU where crime is slowly increasing – but it is still growing. Fortunately, Estonia is one of them at the moment. Rather, we are in a situation where violent crime is increasing rapidly across Europe and it is likely that Estonia itself could unfortunately need more prison places in five, seven years.

A sale would be a very stupid idea. It would be stupid both financially and substantively. We would also lose jobs.

Rait Kuuse, director of the Estonian Prison Service, wrote that an alternative to selling prison space is renting it out. He noted that there is a lot of interest in prison space – both the UK and Sweden would like to house their prisoners in Estonia.

In fact, there are more countries and prison space is already being rented out in Europe. It is quite normal for the needs of different countries to fluctuate over time and for them to seek help from other countries.

We currently have war criminals from other countries in Tartu Prison, which means we already have a similar system. We have three very modern prisons. Prison breaks of any kind are out of the question; no one has ever escaped from them.

By renting out prison space, we could reach a situation where we create significantly more jobs – jobs with completely decent salaries. We could solve several problems related to the budget deficit. If we rented them out, we would rent them out profitably, so the people of Estonia would benefit.

Thirdly, and this is also very important, we would have staff already in place who are already working in the prison. They have a thoroughly vetted background, excellent security knowledge and are great people. They are warmed up, so to speak, when they have to provide security somewhere and are continually trained. In that sense, their only purpose would really be to improve the security of the people on site. In that case, we would have a well-trained reserve available for potential dangerous situations.

And in the event of an escalation or a major threat, it might also be necessary to use the camp as a prison for prisoners of war. Accepting prisoners of war could mean that we have someone we can exchange for the people of Estonia.

How many prison spaces are currently rented in Estonia?

There are currently three war criminals in Tartu prison in Estonia, with another one to come.

How profitable is it for the state to imprison foreign prisoners?

If we talk about rental income, we would start with revenues of about 30 million euros per year – that’s a very rough estimate.

By renting out prison spaces, the Estonian state would earn around 30 million euros per year?

From this amount. The details will be determined during contract negotiations.

Closing and selling – are these the worse options?

Closing means preserving. The maintenance costs would probably amount to over 10 million euros per year, which the Estonian taxpayer would have to pay for nothing.

Since it is a large concrete structure, this means that the building needs to be heated, maintained, ventilated, etc. This would cost the taxpayer, I repeat, at least 10 million euros a year, but he would have to pay this for nothing if politicians decide against renting.

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