Russian prisoners will be able to rehabilitate at home

03:17 RIA Novosti
An instruction on the organisation of the execution of sentences and criminal-legal measures without isolation from society, approved by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, comes into effect on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, 25 August — RIA Novosti. Russian convicts sentenced by a court for minor crimes will be able to serve their sentences at their place of residence. The corresponding instruction on the organisation of the execution of sentences and criminal-legal measures without isolation from society, approved by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, comes into effect on Tuesday.
The document discusses how inspectors are to register, monitor, and talk to people for whom the court has decided to deprive them of the right to hold certain positions, assigned them mandatory and correctional labour, or gave them a suspended sentence. The instruction also clarifies what employees of criminal-executive inspections should do with convicted pregnant women and convicted mothers of children under 14 years of age to whom the court has granted a deferral of sentence execution.
The first visit
Detailing step-by-step all the actions of inspectors from the registration of a convict to the moment of their release from the sentence, the Ministry of Justice gives convicted citizens a maximum of ten days to collect documents and arrive at the inspection to confirm their readiness to rehabilitate.
According to the instruction, inspectors are primarily obliged to explain in detail to the person how and why they will be serving their sentence, to find out and record the most detailed information about their environment, and to tell them about all possible deferrals and leniencies. The convict is also warned in advance about all the consequences of re-offending.
Deprivation of position
Bodies are obliged to ensure that a person found guilty of crimes in any sphere of activity does not have the opportunity to harm citizens or the state again by holding the same positions. In addition to notifying the organisation's administration, the inspector personally visits the convict's former place of work and personally verifies that they have not been rehired.
At the same time, the system tries to track the possible employment of an unemployed convict. And every six months, after finding out where the punished citizen will be working, the inspector checks the accuracy of the execution of the court's decision.
Mandatory and correctional labour
Mandatory labour differs from correctional labour in that it is performed free of charge in time free from main work or study. At the same time, the convict, starting work within two weeks after registration with the inspection, should not perform mandatory labour for longer than four hours on weekends and no more than two hours on working days, and by agreement, it can be less.
When determining where and how the convict will perform mandatory labour, inspectors need to take into account many factors, such as the crime for which they are convicted, their place of residence, the schedule of their main work and study, their state of health, and in the case of a minor, their age and psychological personality characteristics.
Then the inspector verifies the honesty of their ward by phone once a week, receives a timesheet from the place of work once a month, and also visits them monthly. It is enough to miss work twice a month without good reason for the Criminal-Executive Inspection to ask the court to toughen the sentence.
At the same time, a person sentenced to correctional labour starts it within a month of their first appearance at the inspection.
If the convict does not have Russian citizenship and a permit for residence and temporary stay, the inspection independently notifies the Federal Migration Service about this. Also, like any working person, a convict receives a vacation once a year for correctional labour, but for no more than 18 working days. In addition, inspectors ensure that no more money is deducted from their wages than established by the sentence.
Suspended sentence
The appointment of a suspended sentence does not at all exempt one from punishment entirely. Once a quarter, the activities of a conditionally convicted person are checked by employees of the criminal-executive system and the police. The management and administration of the university, vocational school, or school are immediately warned that the person is convicted and does not have the right to change their place of work or study.
However, with exemplary behaviour for at least half of the term appointed by the court, the sentence and the conviction can be removed from a person prematurely.
Pregnant women and mothers with a deferral
If a convicted woman becomes pregnant, the inspector is obliged to explain to her that she can ask the court for a deferral of sentence execution from the day of the provision of maternity leave.
The behaviour of a convicted mother of a child under the age of 14, according to the document, is controlled by the inspection at their place of residence, an employee of which visits her at least once a month, ensuring that she lives in acceptable conditions and in no case avoids raising the child and caring for them. In addition to preventive conversations with the convict herself, inspectors try to influence her beneficially through relatives and acquaintances. At the first violation of the order, the convict is first verbally explained what she is doing wrong. In case of recidivism or abandonment of children, the mitigation is cancelled, and the negligent mother is sent to serve the sentence in its original form.
Not deviating from the path of rehabilitation
According to the new instruction, attempts to avoid serving a sentence that does not involve isolation from society, the conditions for which the correctional system has tried to make as humane as possible, will be punished immediately, but quite mildly. Thus, first, a summons is drawn up and the police are warned that help may be needed in delivering the ‘evader’, then the inspection staff try to visit the citizen at home for a preventive conversation.
If it is not possible to compel the convict to rehabilitate voluntarily, inspectors within three days draw up a motion to the court, where they first ask to add a probationary period, and in case of a repeated violation, to consider the possibility of toughening the sentence. For more confident control over a person's re-education, system workers may ask the judge to force the convict not to change their permanent place of residence, work, or study, to prohibit them from visiting entertainment venues, or to undergo a course of treatment.
The approval of such an instruction is another step by the Ministry of Justice to reduce the number of people behind bars in Russia, which currently tends towards 900,000. At the same time, if the system of punishment strives for mitigation for less significant violations of the law, then for serious crimes, sentences are gradually being toughened.
Human rights activists approve
Russian human rights activists call the replacement of imprisonment with house arrest for people who have committed minor crimes humane.
“I support this measure and consider it one of the steps towards the humanisation of our punishment. We have, I think, about a million people being held in colonies and prisons. As a rule, this system does not rehabilitate a person, but on the contrary—it cripples them,” believes Alexander Brod, director of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights and member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.
According to him, it is necessary to think about alternative methods of punishment, as prisoners in jails encounter discrimination both from other convicts and from the staff of places of imprisonment, after which they return to society “embittered and crippled, morally and physically”.
The executive director of the ‘For Human Rights’ movement, Lev Ponomarev, also positively evaluates this innovation: “If, as a result of the introduction of this punishment, the number of people who are in custody decreases, that is, there will be a real replacement of detention with house arrest, then I am exclusively ‘for’.”
At the same time, Ponomarev fears that the number of those serving their term in places of imprisonment will remain the same, “but additionally, a new number of punished people who will be at home will appear”.