Attempts by the criminal underworld to revive 'thieves' traditions' have intensified, says the First Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine

*Zerkalo Nedeli* has repeatedly covered the situation in the penitentiary system of Ukraine. Today, we offer readers the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the point of view not of human rights activists or parents of the convicted, but of an official. The occasion for our conversation was the resonant events at the Stryzhavka colony in the Vinnytsia region, which were reported by *ZN*. At the request of the Vinnytsia human rights organisation, and under the instructions of the First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine A. Turchynov, an inspection of this colony was conducted. First Deputy Minister of Justice Yevhen Korniychuk spoke about its results.

Let us recall: human rights activists stirred up public opinion with reports that a mass act of self-mutilation was being planned at the colony as a protest against the actions of the administration. The response was traditional: a mass act of self-mutilation was indeed planned, but the facts of torture were not confirmed. However...

— Yevhen Volodymyrovych, it is known that a special meeting was held at the Ministry of Justice regarding the inspection of penitentiary institutions in the Vinnytsia region. What were its results?

— In mid-September, we conducted an inspection. To put it briefly: the stated facts were not confirmed. We studied the situation thoroughly. I personally spoke with at least a dozen convicted persons—in private, without representatives of the Department for the Execution of Punishments and security. Most likely, Mr Groysman (a well-known Vinnytsia human rights activist. — Ed.) has a personal conflict with the head of this institution, and in general, the facts presented in D. Groysman's statement were not confirmed.

— Do you have no complaints about the head of the colony?

— I cannot say that I have none. But my general impression of this correctional colony is that it is not the worst in the system. And according to some indicators, it can serve as an example for other institutions in the punishment execution system.

Kyiv human rights activist Eduard Bahirov participated in the work of our group, but even he failed to obtain confirmation of the information from the Vinnytsia human rights activists. However, we discovered other violations and gave the department a short period to eliminate them. In particular, what demotivates the convicted persons is that they were not paid wages for two months of the current year. The delay occurred because the head of the colony was on leave and there was no one to organise the procedure, although this is, of course, no excuse.

Another serious violation was that work qualifications (classes) were assigned to the convicted persons arbitrarily. A special commission that would take into account the experience and skill of the convicted persons when determining their class, which significantly affects the level of wages, had not been created. The highest class was given to those who behaved better. The problem will be solved within a few weeks.

We also drew the department's attention to the inexpediency of transferring the most difficult and problematic convicted persons to this particular colony. Such a practice had developed because this colony has quite strict management, capable of organising work with the most difficult convicted persons, so they were transferred here from various regions. Thus, a critical mass was created that could explode at any moment. But the facts of abuse, the protest against which was to be a mass act of self-mutilation, were not confirmed.

— In the commission's opinion, what has provoked the hunger strikes by the convicted persons, as well as the attempts and cases of suicide that have recently become known to the public?

— Based on the results of the inspection of the information published by the Vinnytsia Human Rights Group regarding the abuse of convicted persons at the Stryzhavka Correctional Colony (No. 81) by the administration of the specified institution, the Vinnytsia Prosecutor's Office for Supervision of Compliance with Laws during the Execution of Court Decisions in Criminal Cases issued a resolution refusing to initiate a criminal case, as this information did not find confirmation.

During 2008, no cases of convicted persons refusing to eat were established. As for the suicides, indeed, there were two cases of suicide throughout July of this year. The reasons that led to the commission of suicide by the convicted persons are the loss of socially useful ties and socially important guidelines, as well as the difficulties of psychological adaptation to the conditions of deprivation of liberty. Thorough official investigations were conducted into these facts, based on the results of which the prosecutor's office issued resolutions refusing to initiate criminal cases. At the same time, the leadership of the department took measures to prevent such negative phenomena.

By the way, the World Health Organization has calculated that a suicide attempt occurs in the world every three seconds, and a suicide is registered approximately every minute. In Ukraine, death by suicide occupies second place after natural death and death from external causes. Researchers have proven that persons deprived of liberty represent the most suicide-prone part of the population. Statistics for the first seven months of the current year indicate that for every 1,000 people in the population of Ukraine, 0.21 cases of suicide are registered, while among the convicted persons of the State Criminal Executive Service, this indicator is 0.15.

As for the provocation of the events that could have occurred at this colony, it was established that one of the convicted persons with a negative orientation, seeking to achieve a loosening of the established sentence-serving regime, used a mobile phone, smuggled into the colony territory in food from the long-term visitation rooms, to repeatedly contact a human rights activist. On 26 July 2008, while staying in the high-security sector, he planned a mass self-mutilation action by convicted persons in various sectors and reached an agreement on support with several other such violators. The latter were supposed to carry out the appropriate work to select convicted persons to participate in the planned action. At the same time, representatives of human rights organisations and the media were supposed to cover the fact of self-mutilation in the press. Through operational measures, the instigator was identified, he was urgently transferred to another institution in the Vinnytsia region, and the conflict resolved itself.

Unfortunately, while the investigation continues, not all details can be disclosed, because the prosecutor's office has established the elements of a crime in the actions of this convicted person, provided for by Article 392 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (actions that disorganise the activity of correctional institutions).

But it cannot be denied that lately, attempts by the criminal underworld to revive 'thieves' traditions' in places of deprivation of liberty and to weaken the established sentence-serving regime have intensified. I emphasise: attempts to weaken the regime of detention established by law and to create privileged conditions of detention for a separate category of convicted persons, who today consider themselves 'authorities' among the convicted, are the real reason for inciting convicted persons to group protests. To achieve their criminal intentions, criminals actively use human rights organisations and the media. I do not think that Mr Groysman wanted to slander anyone, but he was receiving not entirely truthful information.

Among other problems is the insufficient equipment of the infirmary. We reported the problematic situations in this colony to the government and will keep their resolution under control. For the last nine months, I have been dealing with the problems of the Department of Execution of Punishments. I encountered it for the first time, but, believe me, all problem issues have been studied, and we are working hard on improving the legislation to achieve European standards in this sphere. But compared to other colonies I have visited, Stryzhavka is not dragging at the tail end.

— It was mentioned that the wages of the convicted persons of the Stryzhavka colony No. 81 amount to 10—15 UAH, despite the fact that they work at a fairly profitable enterprise.

— Those with whom I spoke say that they receive 200—300 UAH per month. After all deductions (compensation for material damages caused during the commission of the crime, alimony payments), a person may indeed receive 10—15 UAH. But, in fact, I did not establish a single such fact in my conversation with the convicted persons.

— But they still earn less than the subsistence minimum. Is it possible to ensure that the labour of prisoners ceases to be of a predominantly slave nature, paid symbolically in the future?

— Whether they earn more or less than the subsistence minimum—that is not the question: first of all, they must fulfil the court's sentence. Although you correctly raise the question, as the level of remuneration in penitentiary institutions and the average across the country are incommensurate. Understanding the specifics, perhaps it would be worth studying their work in more detail and proposing different approaches.

But, in accordance with Article 121 of the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine, persons serving a sentence in correctional colonies reimburse the cost of food, clothing, footwear, bedding, communal-household, and other provided services from their accrued earnings, pensions, and other income. In addition, deductions are made based on writs of execution and other executive documents.

But, firstly, the labour of convicted persons is not slave labour. They often work at state-owned non-profit enterprises, where general state rates and tariffs apply, calculated taking into account the level of the minimum wage.

Secondly, in accordance with current legislation, the labour of convicted persons is viewed as one of the ways to reinforce their work skills and train them in a profession for adaptation in society after release, and the wage level depends on the quantity and quality of manufactured products. For information: the level of labour productivity of convicted persons is four times lower than in industry. However, those who want to work have wages at the level of two thousand hryvnias. But it should be taken into account that convicted persons receive funds into their personal accounts only after all deductions.

Persons who did not work anywhere and did not learn a profession before conviction often end up in places of deprivation of liberty. This is precisely why the efforts of the criminal executive service workers are currently aimed at the vocational training of convicted persons (98 educational institutions have been created) and their acquisition of work skills directly in production.

To date, 48% of able-bodied convicted persons are engaged in paid work in the State Criminal Executive Service. Often, this is caused by the obsolescence of the production capacities of these institutions' enterprises, the lack of qualified personnel, and the low professional level of the convicted persons. Unfortunately, state programmes for the creation of a certain number of jobs for convicted persons, developed by the Department for the Execution of Punishments, are not provided with adequate budget financing. The difficult situation with production equipment is complicated by the constant withdrawal of the enterprises' working capital to cover the underfunding of the system's needs from the state budget. Products with the image 'made in prison' are not popular and do not always find a buyer. Guaranteed state orders for communal services, hospitals, schools (furniture, inventory, and so on), security structures, and Ukrzaliznytsia (blankets, linen) would allow for a significant improvement in the situation with the employment of convicted persons.

By the way, in the Stryzhavka colony, we saw that almost all convicted persons are provided with work.

— Where do the funds earned by these enterprises go?

— To improving the conditions of detention for prisoners. The Stryzhavka colony is self-sufficient in this sense. But how rationally the funds are used is a question not for the Ministry of Justice, but for the State Audit Service. On the surface, there are no violations. People are in decent conditions and are fed normally.

But many colonies, despite the income they receive, must also pay off tax debt that formed back in the 90s. As of 1 August 2008, the total tax debt of the enterprises of the punishment execution institutions amounted to 140.5 million UAH, including 70.3 million UAH in debt for value-added tax.

The problem lies in the fact that one can say with high certainty: there is a shortage of money in the colonies, and they are going to other needs, but one needs to start with the fact that the government underfunds penitentiary institutions. Unfortunately, the State Programme for Improving Conditions for the Detention of Convicted Persons and Persons Taken into Custody for 2006—2010, adopted in 2006 by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on the initiative of the Department for the Execution of Punishments, is financed only at 10% of the planned volumes (58.3 million UAH in 2008). But for next year, we are planning to significantly increase the financing of penitentiary institutions. The government supports our initiatives. I believe that at least 50% of the problems within the punishment execution system lie in the sphere of underfunding. If financing were carried out in normal volumes, it would be possible to solve many problems, in particular, the problem of switching to cell-type conditions from barracks-type, and the problem of better nutrition. You know, currently, 3.5 UAH per day is allocated for the nutrition of a convicted person...

— Following your logic, one can speak of a significant improvement in the situation. After all, ten years ago, eight kopecks were allocated for the nutrition of a convicted person.

— In the prison infirmary of the Stryzhavka colony, where there is an ophthalmological hospital for convicted persons, I spoke with a woman who was waiting for surgery. She said that she was in prison 15 years ago, and it was much harder then. And now, she said, it is a 'resort.'

At the same time, we have very problematic colonies. The vast majority of engineering and communal-household facilities were built more than 50 years ago. Their technical condition and operational safety level have reached a critical limit, which can pose a threat to people's health and life and be a cause of accidents and emergency situations. Preventive maintenance has effectively turned into emergency repair work, the costs of which are two to three times higher.

I saw gruesome things in Simferopol. The pre-trial detention centre there was built back in the days of Catherine II. It just needs to be demolished and a new one built. Conditions there are such that detainees are taken 220 km to Kherson. That is precisely why we have come forward with a pilot project for building new institutions and moving facilities outside of cities, especially those that require immediate technical intervention. We are talking about such pre-trial detention centres as Lviv, Lukyanivske (built 300 years ago), Odesa, and Simferopol. There are appeals from commercial enterprises ready to sign agreements with city administrations and the department to build modern facilities outside the city in exchange for the plot of land under these pre-trial detention centres.

— And how much will this cost?

— It depends on the region. The issues regarding Lviv and Odesa have been studied in detail, but for now, we cannot voice the figures, as we have not reached an actual result.

— Is there consent from the city authorities?

— The city authorities would be pleased. Firstly, traffic intensity in the city centre decreases, and the safety issue improves. Such pilot projects need to be launched. They will both unload the city and guarantee better conditions for those held in custody.

— After the conflict in the Vinnytsia region arose, an article by Prosecutor General A. Medvedko was published in the newspaper *Holos Ukrainy* regarding the role of prosecutor's offices in preventing and investigating facts of torture applied to prisoners. He claims that these are isolated and non-systemic cases and that not a single fact of a prisoner's death, the cause of which was the illegal actions of the administration of places of detention, has been established. Whereas every year, about a thousand complaints are received, and fifty cases of suicide are recorded. Do you agree with this statistic?

— We cannot replace the prosecutor's office, which is an independent investigation body. But as a lawyer, I can question some statistics, because, if desired, any crime can be hidden, especially within a closed system. Although the prosecutor's office has a special subunit that deals with supervision of compliance with laws during the execution of court decisions in criminal cases and other measures of coercion. But if, in the days of the USSR, personnel rotation was conducted every five years, today this is not the case. Another big problem is the shortage of workers in the system for the execution of punishments. This is connected to the level of remuneration, which is lower than in the armed forces or law enforcement agencies. Here, one needs to think about increasing the prestige of this profession and about material incentives.

— Besides the personnel problem, there is also the issue of mail censorship, the impossibility of receiving timely medical help, documenting beatings, and appealing the actions of personnel. What measures are being taken to change this practice, guaranteeing the convicted persons the right to protection from the possible arbitrariness of personnel?

— The problem needs to be solved systematically. The Ministry of Justice has limited functions of control over the system. The Department is not subordinate to us directly. The Ministry of Justice deals with the legislative provision of the punishment execution system. We have managed to establish active cooperation with the Department for the Execution of Punishments—we currently have work boiling over in the sphere of legislative activity. We work without squabbles, and I want to give credit to the leadership of the department, which, despite all the problems, is moving, in my opinion, in the right direction.

— How is the cooperation with the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which has the right to inspect Ukrainian penitentiary institutions, going? This information is disclosed only as punishment for a country that refuses to improve the situation. Are many complaints received by this committee?

— In nine months, I have never spoken with representatives of the committee. Last summer, I led the delegation of Ukraine in Geneva, where the national report on the observance of human rights in our state was heard. 30—40% of the national report consisted of questions about detention conditions within the penitentiary system. International human rights organisations, as well as representatives of the international organisation of prison staff, with whom we had meetings, did not roll a single black ball against Ukraine. This does not mean that everything is fine with us, but it means that we have neighbours for whom the situation is significantly worse. As for torture, there are some decisions of the European Court of Human Rights concerning improper treatment of convicted persons in places of deprivation of liberty in Ukraine.

— The decisions of the European Court regarding our country mainly contain tasks for reforms. What measures have been taken?

— It is precisely for this reason that we have started working on a new complex target programme for reforming the State Criminal Executive Service of Ukraine for 2008—2017. We are working on juvenile justice and a new law on the probation service. In most European countries, there is a probation service that executes alternative types of punishment to deprivation of liberty and ensures the process of resocialisation of citizens who have committed minor and medium-severity crimes.

If in 1991 the number of those sentenced to punishments alternative to deprivation of liberty was only 61 thousand people, today the number of such convicted persons has almost equalled the number of persons in places of pre-trial detention and institutions for the execution of punishments. Annually, the records of the criminal executive inspection cover about 300 thousand people. The average load on one staff worker is 134 convicted persons. In European countries, the ratio of convicted persons in prisons and persons on the records of the probation service is 1:2. The presence of such a service allows for a significant reduction in state expenditures on maintaining places of deprivation of liberty.

We still have a dispute about where the probation service will be created: within the Ministry of Justice or under the Department for the Execution of Punishments. The question of increasing the efficiency and quality of the department's personnel has gained great weight. The key problem it runs into is the lack of an educational institution that would train officers for the system. It should be noted that the issues of training prison personnel are viewed by the Council of Europe as primary and priority, which was emphasised by CoE experts during a working meeting in May 2005 in Strasbourg.

To date, the entire officer corps of the punishment execution system was inherited by the system from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We are trying to resolve the issue with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of transferring one of the universities for personnel training. A specially created working group will soon submit proposals to the Cabinet of Ministers regarding the settlement of this problem.

— How is the issue of juvenile justice being resolved?

— Undoubtedly, the subject of priority attention remains the issues of increasing the socio-legal protection of youth who have had a conflict with the law.

In the field of view of the State Criminal Executive Service of Ukraine today are three categories of juvenile offenders. The first is juveniles to whom the court determined a preventive measure in the form of detention in custody. There are about 1.4 thousand of them held in pre-trial detention centres in Ukraine.

The second category is juveniles sentenced to punishments not associated with deprivation of liberty (predominantly released from serving the sentence with probation). They number almost 8 thousand people, and they are on the records of the units of the criminal executive inspection. The third category is juveniles sentenced to punishment in the form of deprivation of liberty. This is the most complex category of young offenders, numbering 1.9 thousand adolescents.

For the execution of punishments in the form of deprivation of liberty regarding juveniles, ten special educational institutions (colonies) function in Ukraine, one of which is for convicted girls.

The complexity of the situation with convicted juveniles who end up in places of deprivation of liberty is primarily due to their socio-pedagogical neglect. After all, 34% of them did not work or study, and 52% did not have full-fledged care and upbringing, as they are orphans or come from single-parent families.

Before conviction, 9% of juveniles were raised in special educational institutions, and 59% were previously sentenced to punishments not associated with deprivation of liberty.

In the matter of improving the system of resocialisation of convicted juveniles in Ukraine, significant attention is paid to studying international standards and the practice of executing punishments regarding juveniles abroad.

In accordance with the Council of Europe's 'Prison Partnership' programme and several other programmes, workers of educational colonies had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the practice of juvenile justice and penitentiary institutions for juveniles in the United States of America, Slovakia, Austria, Denmark, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Northern Ireland. Their experience testifies: it is necessary to change not only the forms and methods of work with adolescents who are in places of deprivation of liberty but also the organisation of the activities of these institutions so that, in terms of accommodation conditions and personnel treatment, they do not resemble institutions for adult convicted persons. Such a position is one of the principles of the juvenile justice system, the course for the implementation of which is defined in Ukraine.

Accordingly, this department is taking measures aimed at the maximum removal of 'prison attributes' from educational colonies. In the long term, they should be reorganised into rehabilitation-educational centres, which requires the development of an appropriate model and the introduction of legislative changes.

Such centres will represent civilised institutions that meet the general level of culture, social values, and social relations.

Study of foreign experience testifies that the optimal model is the penitentiary institutions for juveniles in the Netherlands.

Undoubtedly, the creation of similar institutions at the expense of the budget at the current stage does not seem realistic, therefore it is necessary to attract regional opportunities, as well as domestic and foreign investors. At the same time, it is unacceptable to delay the creation of civilised conditions for convicted adolescents, citing only financial problems. As criminologists acknowledge, the price of crime is significantly higher than the costs of its prevention.

This also applies to the status of juvenile convicted persons who are on the records of the criminal executive inspection. These adolescents have made their first mistakes in their lives, therefore the court, on behalf of the state, gives them the opportunity to reform without being held in places of deprivation of liberty. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that the potential of the units of the criminal executive inspection in preventive work regarding offenders who are on their records, and their social environment, is limited.

European practice is convincing: teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers should be widely involved in working with this category of youth.

Of course, these specialists do not necessarily have to be staff workers of the criminal executive service. Volunteers and representatives of social services should primarily be involved in the ranks of rehabilitation specialists.

Therefore, we need to systematise our findings regarding work with various categories of juvenile offenders, and search for and implement the most effective measures of social support for youth who are in conflict with the law.