Official Russia

I can not sit calmly and listen to the raptures of certain of my colleagues and even of certain human rights advocates on account of the declaration of the new director of the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments (FSIN) of Russia [the current name of the agency responsible for running the country's vast penal system, formerly known as GULag--Trans.] mister Reimer about improving the penitentiary system, Improvements, I will note, they promised in the distant - to the year 2020 - perspective , yet some are attempting to choke from rapture already today.

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A couple of days ago I read the draft of the new conception of reforming the criminal-execution [penal--Trans.] system of Russia. The first impression - a sense of déjà vu. I swear I’d already read this some time before, some 10-15 years ago. In various sources. And I didn’t like it then either. And now I don’t like it yet again. And the old arguments come floating back. The UIS - is truly an executional system. I would sharpen it: a dully executional one. It executes even those instructions that it is criminal to execute. For example, the instructions of investigators not to provide medical treatment to sick people in a SIZO [an investigative isolator, where suspects and accuseds are remanded from the moment of their arrest until sentencing--Trans.]; not to grant them visitations with kin, lawyers; not to dispatch their letters to instances…

We have way too many prisoners and way too old places of deprivation of
liberty for them. We can not remodel these old places: they’ve got to
be razed to the ground and build new ones.
The three main - and old - conclusions from the text of the new
conception simply can’t be done; there’s no way: first - employees of
the UIS must not be military in essence and in form; second - doctors
promptly must be taken out of subordination to the FSIN; third - the
every possibility of influencing the life of arrestees must be taken
away legislatively from investigators.

An enumeration of the numbers in the text of the conception impresses
only at first. Then you invariably start to ask yourself the question -
why are it needed? After all, few people know what stands behind them?
131 prison hospitals for the entire country - is this a lot or a
little? 59 medical prison establishments - is that a lot or a little?
For 900 thousand prisoners 300 thousand uinovites - is that a lot or a
little? Not having grasped these numbers, nobody will be able to
intelligibly say whether the conception itself is any good.

Lots of general phrases. «The norms are raised, legislation is being
perfected…» One would like to know how all this is being executed? And
is it? The fact is that the oversight body for the UIS - the procuracy
- has completely discredited itself. Instead of four separate
structures - the FSIN, the procuracy, investigation and the courts - we
have a single repressive organ.

There are some truly frightening phrases in the conception. For
example, about the increase in the quantity of convicts in the period
of the years from 2000 through 2005. It turns out, this increase took
place in conditions of a reduction in the level of criminality in the
country. That is, legal murkiness and mayhem reigned in the country in
these years. There are more convicts than crimes. Kafka can take a rest.

It is noted that «the overall quantity of arrestees …in certain
regions significantly exceeds the quantity of places had in SIZOs». But
later in the text the conclusion is not made: either one has to reduce
the quantity of arrests, or increase the quantity of SIZOs.

About the «exceedingly harsh and not always justified practice of the
investigative and judicial organs during the selection of measures of
restraint in the form of arrest» the FSIN is speaking not the first
time already. But not one of the top leaders has left his post as a
sign of protest against this practice. And not a single president has
reacted to this opinion of the FSIN.

Further on is cited a multitude of numbers by categories of the sitting
[Russian for "locked up"--Trans.] contingent: the sick, the psychos, the
tuberculars…But there aren’t other numbers: how many convicts die
annually in the FSIN system; how many healthy people have found their
way into the system and have come out of it as invalids; how many
uprisings annually convulse the FSIN system…

The main proposed innovation (and the FSIN has already begun to boast
about it ) - a replacement of the existing system of correctional
institution into two principal types of institutions - jails and
colonies-settlements.

Despite the fact that this innovation came from «beyond the hill» and
has proven itself in many countries, I am categorically against it.
Even without this Russian camps - are places of tortures, and here it’s
being proposed to make the conditions of detention even harsher. A
Russian jail - this is the conditions of a SIZO: cramped, stuffy and
sweltering, ten arrestees per four bunks, 40 minutes exercise,
poisonous food, a minimum of medical services, the pressure of the
personnel… In today’s colonies one can at least move around, but under
jail detention these movements are reduced to a minimum.

It is being proposed to use colonies-settlements with intensified
surveillance (KPUNs) in the FSIN system. That is, the camp system
remains nevertheless, only it’s called a KPUN, and the name looks more
humane.

All this - the increasing of the kinds of jails, the detailed
enumeration of kilograms and seconds for telephone calls and
visitations - is a vivid confirmation that in the country there will
ALWAYS take place a whitewashing, the appearance of reforming the
penitentiary system - as long as the country is going to be run by
people who are indifferent to the country, and the FSIN - by people
with a repressive way of thinking. Who would beat into their heads that
they’re depriving people of the freedom of movement, and not of the
freedom to have a decent meal fit for a human being, to communicate
with family, to breathe air!

On the whole, the conception is contradictory: on the one hand,
they’re proposing to introduce alternative methods of punishment, on
the other - to expand the arsenal of punishments applied by the
administrations of jails and colonies.

They are proposing to socialize those who have been released from
places of deprivation of liberty, but on the other hand - to introduce
asocial institutions, such as «recognizing persons as dangerous and
especially dangerous recidivists, creating a system of administrative
oversight under the departmental subordination of the MVD of Russia…»
and so forth.

At hand is the striving of the FSIN to loudly declare about how a new
broom has arrived. And that the broom isn’t demanding anything all that
much: well, to increase financing a jot, to patch something up and give
it a fresh coat of paint here and there. But in the main - to promise
anything and everything and to remain faithful to the traditions of a
repressive totalitarian way of thinking.

*The title of this article references an aphorism of Alexander Galaganov

Source: Robert Amsterdam