Parcels for prisoners are no longer restricted

By the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of 28 May 2008 “Some questions of social protection of certain categories of citizens”, the restrictions on the number of parcels (deliveries) and small packages for convicts serving sentences in correctional and educational colonies have been lifted.
Also, restrictions on the number of parcels (deliveries) and money transfers have been lifted for persons held in custody in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Pre-trial Detention”. Until recently, the Criminal Executive Code clearly stipulated: for minimum-security correctional colonies (for example, the Dobrovody colony for women), each prisoner was allowed no more than seven parcels (deliveries) and four small packages per year. For medium-security institutions (such as the Kopychyntsi correctional colony) – six parcels and four small packages, and for maximum security – five parcels and two small packages.
Undoubtedly, the new measure means an improvement in the prisoners’ plight.
But are penitentiary institutions abandoning the Soviet rule of holding people in punishment cells, other types of “prison within a prison” – disciplinary isolation cells, and camera-type premises on bread and water?

As is known, a public reception office of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union operates in the editorial office of “Svoboda”. Therefore, relatives of convicts whose rights in captivity have been violated often come here.

Recently, the mother of a prisoner serving his sentence in a correctional colony in the Chernihiv region brought a letter from her son, in which he writes: he has been placed in a camera-type cell (PTK) for three months, and therefore he is prohibited from receiving parcels and small packages until 16 August.

Deputy Head of the Department for the Execution of Sentences in the Ternopil region, Oleksiy Hrek, commented on the situation as follows: The Internal Regulations of 2003, established by the Department for the Execution of Sentences, provide for restrictions on parcels, small packages, as well as visits and the purchase of food in the store while a convict is placed in a disciplinary isolation cell, punishment cell, or camera-type premises. There are no other restrictions on food, meaning they are not put on bread and water as in Soviet times.