Jan-Erik Sandlie

Deputy Director General, The Directorate of the Norwegian Correctional Service, Norway

Jan-Erik Sandlie is Deputy Director General in the Directorate of Norwegian Correctional Service and second in command. The Directorate was established in 2013.
Mr. Sandlie has worked within the Correctional Service since his graduation as a lawyer in 1989. He has through his career held different positions in the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, Department of Correctional Service, ranging from Executive Officer and Adviser to Deputy Director General. He has also been project manager for some major and key developing projects in the Norwegian Correctional Service: the planning of Halden prison, the reduction of the waiting list (“prison queue”), implementing Electronic Monitoring and Implementation of the White paper “Punishment that works”. From 2001 – 2007 he was Deputy Regional Director in Correctional Service, Region East and in 2013 Regional Director of the same region. Mr. Sandlie is the co-author of several books about Norwegian Correctional Service.

Sara Van Malderen

National Coordinator of Prison Drug Policy and Project Lead Drugs and Conflict & Agression Policy, Federal Department of Justice - Directorate general Penitentiary Institutions, Belgium

Sara has a Master in Criminology and a Master in European Criminology and Criminal Justice Systems. She started her career as scientific researcher where she studied different criminological phenomena, drugs and drug policy at the University of Ghent (Belgium) for four years. Drawn to put theory and policy recommendations into practice, she took on the job of Regional Coordinator of Drug Policy for the Belgian Prison Service (Public Service of Justice) for four years. Then she worked as a prison director for seven years, first in a prison for remand prisoners, followed by a prison for long sentenced prisoners Since 2020, she works as Project Lead at the headquarters. Using her experience as a prison director in combination with her expertise on drugs and with a scientifical background, she leads innovative prison projects on Drugs and prison projects on Conflict and Aggression reducing interventions, unfolding within prisons. She also holds the position of National Coordinator of the Belgian Prison Drug Policy.