You should be able to make and keep contacts inside the prison and on the outside, to participate in educational activities, to work and engage in other activities, as well. To do this, you should be able to stay in one place for a longer period of time.
Reasons for transfer
This does not mean that you cannot be transferred to another cell or prison. Transfer can be used as a measure to ensure your safety or for administrative reasons related to the prison system or a change in your sentence execution regime. However, it should only be done for valid reasons and not often, so as to make it impossible for you to establish your life in one place for a longer period of time.
More frequent transfers to another prison or cell might be necessary and justified on some occasions, for example:
- for the implementation of the individual treatment plan of the prisoner
- the achievement of the objectives of execution of imprisonment
- for reasons of security
A prisoner may be transferred to an open prison with his or her consent if it becomes evident on the basis of the individual treatment plan of the prisoner that it is not practical for the prisoner to serve his or her sentence in a closed prison
A prisoner may be transferred to a closed prison if he or she fails to comply with the requirements of Imprisonment Act or the internal rules of the prison or commits new offences. It is also permitted to transfer a prisoner from an open prison to a closed prison if this is necessary to achieve the objectives of execution of imprisonment.
What human rights violation may there be?
Prohibition against inhumane or degrading treatment
If you get moved from one prison cell to another, or from one prison to another many times in a short period of time without real need and assessment, it may cause the stress of adaption to a new environment and expose you to new danger, especially if you belong to a group of vulnerable prison inmates. This may lead to a violation of the prohibition against inhumane or degrading treatment. However the effect such transfers leave on your physical or mental condition should reach a certain minimum level of severity.
Read more about how to evaluate whether your rights have been violated.
Right to a private life
Repeated unnecessary transfers can disrupt normal everyday life and relationships with other inmates. This may violate your right to a private life.
How to complain
If you believe that you are being transferred without reason or that you are not being transferred when it is necessary, you should complain to the Latvian Prison Administration. Read more about how to complain.