In March of 2022, a consortium of CSOs came together (De Huizen, Restorative Justice Netherlands, FARAPEJ, RESHAPE and Prison Insider) for the WISH-EU Project. WISH EU stands for Working in Small-Scale Detention Houses in Europe.

This European project, funded by the European Commission, aims to support the implementation of small-scale, differentiated and community-integrated detention houses or facilities in Europe. Throughout the project, members of the CSOs identified and visited over 30 good practices from various European regions that apply one or more of the aforementioned principles. This enabled us to centralize and disseminate the knowledge already in existence about relational security and small-scale, differentiated and community-integrated facilities in Europe. 

Simultaneously, the WISH-EU Project brought together partners from national networks in multidisciplinary knowledge workspaces on detention houses – platforms for co-creating new knowledge and a network that fosters exchanges among practitioners, policymakers, researchers and individuals with lived experience. At the European level, we organized Learning Labs with participation from over 20 experts, who shared their insights on specific topics related to small-scale forms of detention. 

Building upon this freshly acquired knowledge, we are in the process of developing policy frameworks such as European Rules on the Ecosystem of Detention Houses and European Guidelines on Relational Security.
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