The Number of Convicts in Prisons Exceeds That of Detainees for the First Time: Julhakyan

The candidate for the chair of the Permanent Committee on State and Legal Affairs of the National Assembly, Arusyak Julhakyan, addressed the issue of the application of detention and alternative preventive measures during her concluding speech. According to her, there has already been some progress in this direction in Armenia.

“Yes, alternative preventive measures have already been envisaged. We have stipulated this in the new Criminal Procedure Code that we adopted,” Julhakyan stated.

She noted that representatives of the authorities had expressed dissatisfaction for years with investigative bodies and the prosecution for not sufficiently applying alternative preventive measures.

According to Julhakyan, this year marks the first positive change recorded in the statistics of prisons. “This year, it has finally been recorded that the number of individuals serving their sentences in prisons exceeds the number of detainees. Previously, our statistics were different. Now we have managed to change that negative statistics,” she announced.

At the same time, Julhakyan emphasized that work in this direction should continue. In simpler terms, fewer people are being held in prisons without yet being sentenced. This refers to individuals for whom the court has applied detention as a preventive measure, but for whom there is still no final judgment.