The Criminal-Executive System of Kazakhstan: Indicators of Unresolved Problems

For a very significant period of time—many decades of the 20th century—the work of the criminal-executive system of Kazakhstan, as well as the criminal policy in our country as a whole, was predominantly repressive in nature. It is no accident that Kazakhstan was called a country of camps. For many people on the planet, the names of Stalinist camps are infamously known: “KARLAG,” “STEPLAG,” “ALZHIR,” “VOSTOKLAG,” and others. And this is likely a fundamental reason why the state of the criminal-executive system itself is very complex and difficult. For a long period, our country was in one of the top places in terms of the number of prisoners (after the Russian Federation and the USA). The conditions for keeping prisoners and the conditions of confinement were often simply inhuman.
Currently, the criminal-executive system of Kazakhstan comprises 20 pre-trial detention centres and 75 institutions (19 general-regime correctional colonies, 19 strict-regime, 5 special-regime colonies, 1 prison, 17 settlement colonies, 8 hospitals, 4 educational colonies, and 2 social rehabilitation centres for persons released from places of deprivation of liberty). As of 1 June 2009, they held 53,359 convicts and 8,736 investigative arrestees, which constitutes 0.3% and 0.1% of the country’s total population, respectively (1). Kazakhstan’s prison index is 382 people per 100,000 of the population (17th place in the world for the number of prisoners per 100,000 population). This is a high figure for a country with a population of 16 million.
Over the last ten years, the penitentiary system of Kazakhstan has been undergoing significant changes aimed at expanding the rights of the arrested and convicted, and humanising the conditions of custody and serving sentences. To these ends, numerous amendments were made to the Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the Internal Rules of Correctional Institutions approved by the Order of the Minister of Justice of 11 December 2001, No. 148, were adopted. The transfer of the criminal-executive system to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan took place, which pursued the goal of more fully ensuring the rights and legitimate interests of convicts. The financing of the criminal-executive system of Kazakhstan has increased. In recent years, the volume of financing has grown substantially—over the last 5 years by more than three times; for example, in 2003 (7 billion tenge), 2004 (10 billion tenge), 2005 (15 billion tenge), 2006 (17 billion tenge), 2007 (22 billion tenge), 2008 (23 billion tenge, about 150 million US dollars) (2). For example, according to statistics, every Kazakh citizen pays 1,410 tenge (about 9 US dollars) for the maintenance of convicts, while an American pays 78 US dollars. The criminal-executive system of Kazakhstan has become more costly for society. All these institutional reforms were intended to have a positive impact on the conditions of confinement in places of deprivation of liberty.
The higher and more advanced Kazakh and international standards for ensuring the rights of the arrested and convicted become, the more noticeable it is that a tangible practical shift for the better in this area has not yet occurred. The correspondence of human rights organisations in Kazakhstan (the long-term practice of the PO “Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law” and its regional branches) testifies to the fact that the rights of the arrested and convicted in Kazakh penitentiary institutions continue to be violated. Thus, in particular, the unjustified use of physical force and special means, the equally unjustified imposition of penalties, and many other violations are widespread.
The conditions of confinement in many penitentiary institutions, in essence, violate human dignity. After all, the majority of the country’s correctional institutions were built in the 40s-70s of the 20th century, and some pre-trial detention centres even in the 18th century. Many of them are in a dilapidated and sometimes hazardous condition, to which the heads of the CES of the RK regularly drew attention (3). In recent years, the construction of modern standard correctional institutions has practically not been carried out; if new institutions were commissioned, in most cases they were converted from various facilities (by the way, 4 institutions were created on the territory of a former Soviet army military base in the village of Solnechny, Zharminsky district, East Kazakhstan region). The colony-based detachment system has been preserved, where 100 or more convicts serve their sentences in each detachment. In the development programmes of the CES of Kazakhstan, it was planned that the number of convicts in institutions would be no more than 500 people. Unfortunately, this point was not fulfilled. Overcrowding and congestion are among the reasons for conflicts between convicts and the administration of institutions and the criminogenic nature of places of deprivation of liberty. In correctional institutions, convicts do not have the opportunity to keep their personal space inviolable, so they constantly experience discomfort and anxiety. One of the indicators of this problem has been the increase in the number of suicides in correctional institutions. According to reports from the CES of the RK, in 2000 there were 31 cases of suicide among convicts, in 2001—27, 2002—18, 2003—44, 2004—32, 2005—43, 2006—31, 2007—47, 2008—56. Thus, over the last eight years, the growth of suicide cases in places of deprivation of liberty in Kazakhstan has increased by more than 2 times.
According to international standards, one of the indicators of the effectiveness of penitentiary institutions is their safety. Unfortunately, correctional institutions in Kazakhstan have not become safe; for example, in 2008, 295 crimes were committed (in 2007—199), of which 44 were grave and particularly grave crimes (in 2007—45) (4).
Diseases such as tuberculosis, including in drug-resistant forms, are widespread among convicts, and the number of HIV-infected individuals is growing. Thus, the number of HIV-infected individuals in places of deprivation of liberty in Kazakhstan in 2001 was 446, 2002—531, 2003—525, 2004—598, 2005—705, 2006—1176, 2007—1598 (5), 2008—1736, and in the first six months of 2009—2,291 people. Thus, we see that over eight years, the number of HIV-infected individuals in the CES of Kazakhstan has increased 5-fold. And in total, throughout all the years of observation, 2,334 people have become infected with HIV in CES institutions. According to the Republican AIDS Centre, the share of HIV-infected prisoners in the total structure of cumulatively registered cases as of 01.01.2008 was: in Kazakhstan—29.3%, i.e., every third HIV-infected person in the country is serving a sentence in the form of deprivation of liberty.
It is very important that the state solves the problems of healthcare and human rights in penitentiary institutions only in a complex manner, so that the situation described in the book by European researchers “Sentenced to Death” is not repeated. After all, the state, by depriving a person of liberty, assumes the obligation to organise the execution of punishments in such a way as not only to preserve the convict’s life during the serving of the sentence but also to return these persons to society healthy and employable. However, the mass nature of diseases and the rapid progression of illness lead to the fact that, having entered a pre-trial detention centre, a healthy person becomes sick, disabled, or even dies after a few months. Thus, the problems of healthcare in the CES have long outgrown being departmental and have become a national category, as they threaten each of us.
It should be emphasised that such a generally alarming picture is explained not only by the poor performance of their official duties by the staff of the criminal-executive system but also by the extremely slow change in the very principles upon which this system is built. The criminal policy of the state is not aimed at implementing alternative measures of punishment to deprivation of liberty.
Kazakhstan also needs special measures of social rehabilitation, effective measures of social rehabilitation for persons who have served their sentences. Without the participation of local authorities, this task cannot be solved. In the republic, only 2 centres of social rehabilitation function in the cities of Ust-Kamenogorsk and Shymkent. I would like to dwell on the problems of the first rehabilitation centre in the country, located in the East Kazakhstan region, which was created in September 2007. The rehabilitation centre for persons released from places of deprivation of liberty was housed in the premises of the former settlement colony OV 156/13. Current repair work was carried out in all the centre’s buildings, and the centre’s premises meet sanitary and fire safety requirements. However, the Charter of the Centre, approved by the order of the Chairman of the CES of the MJ of the RK on 17 September 2007, did not provide for nutrition norms per one rehabilitated person, nor norms for the provision of bedding, although funds were allocated for these purposes. However, instead of correcting the regrettable error, the leadership of the CES of the MJ of the RK, by order No. 94-od of 22 October 2008, approved a new Charter of the Centre, which generally does not provide for issues of residence and nutrition for rehabilitated persons, although the issues of domestic settling of former convicts remain one of the main tasks of the centre. Moreover, the CES Committee of the MJ of the RK, by letter 14/10-5314 of 20 December 2008, demanded the exclusion of facts of persons residing in the Rehabilitation Centre. At that time, 40 persons released from places of deprivation of liberty were living there, whom the Centre’s staff were forced to evict in the literal sense onto the street. Thereby, through these ill-considered actions by certain officials, the idea of resocialisation of convicts was completely discredited. After all, we must not forget that every year an average of up to 20,000 people are released from places of deprivation of liberty and places of confinement. At the same time, we must, of course, pay attention to the so-called recidivism, or the repetition of crimes. Of course, the interrelation between recidivism and social rehabilitation measures is undoubtedly direct and obvious. In this regard, it is necessary to adopt the long-overdue law on the social rehabilitation of persons released from places of deprivation of liberty.
By virtue of these reasons, the total number of persons held in places of deprivation of liberty remains unjustifiably high. This, in turn, does not allow for the creation of the necessary material and psychological prerequisites for ensuring their rights.
One of the fundamental reasons for the unsatisfactory situation in the field of ensuring the rights of detainees and convicts is the absence of an effective mechanism for public oversight over the criminal-executive system. Despite the fact that public oversight is enshrined in the criminal-executive legislation of Kazakhstan and 15 public monitoring commissions have been created in the regions and the cities of Astana and Almaty, we see that there are many unresolved issues regarding the activities of the PMC in Kazakhstan, primarily the issue of financing the PMC (specifically, the reimbursement of travel expenses for members of monitoring groups, their training, etc.). Secondly, the issue of creating a single coordinating centre for the PMC has not been resolved; upon whom the function of an organisational-methodological nature should be placed. The issue of the possibility of surprise visits to correctional institutions by members of the PMC is fundamental; unfortunately, in Kazakhstan, it is not legally enshrined. The procedure for submitting final reports on a visit to a CI is unclear, and who and how should respond to the recommendations of representatives of public oversight. Thus, the institute of the PMC, unfortunately, does not fully fulfil the functions assigned to it; systemic public oversight of penitentiary institutions practically does not exist in the country. And this is an issue that is perhaps not only legal, but to a greater extent political.
Even after the ratification on 26 June 2008 by Kazakhstan of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, in accordance with which the country took on the obligation to create a national preventive mechanism for the prevention of torture, including in penitentiary institutions, to this day the NPM model in Kazakhstan has not been developed, although according to Art. 17 of the Protocol, the State party shall maintain, designate, or establish, at the latest one year after the entry into force of the present Protocol, one or several independent national preventive mechanisms for the prevention of torture at the national level.
The resolution of the above-mentioned problems will allow for making the criminal-executive system of Kazakhstan more humane, safe, and open.
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1 - According to the preliminary results of the national population census of Kazakhstan, the population in 2009 was 16,304,840 people.
2 - Kenzhetayev E.M. Legality of the execution of criminal punishments in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Collection of materials of the Expert meeting on the development of the CES of the RK, Astana, 14 August 2008 - Almaty. - p. 17
3 - Duisekeyev A.M. Current state and main directions of further development of the CES of the RK. Collection of materials of the Expert meeting on the development of the CES of the RK, Astana, 14 August 2008 - Almaty. - p. 13
4 - N.A. Isakov. Crime statistics in the CI system. Execution of punishments. 2009. No. 1. - p. 4
5 - Situation in the CES of the RK in the field of health protection. Materials of the II Central Asian Regional Forum on issues of drug consumption and infectious diseases in prisons. Bishkek. 29-31 October 2008. http://stop-spid.kz/news/2008-11-17-10



Rakhimberdin K.Kh., Candidate of Legal Sciences,
Dean of the Law Faculty, East Kazakhstan State University named after S. Amanzholov