Strange Peculiarities of Penitentiary Statistics in 2014

The human rights organisation ‘Donetsk Memorial’ has been closely monitoring the statistical information on the activities of Ukraine’s criminal-executive system, published by the department, for over fifteen years. These data have always been used with a high degree of trust in their reliability and accuracy. In 2014, however, the level of trust in the reliability of such data fell significantly.

This primarily concerns statistical data published on the department’s website www.kvs.gov.ua in the ‘General Information’ section, under the ‘General Overview’ subsection.

This applies, in particular, to the list of institutions for which information is provided and the respective territories where they are located. As late as May 2014, the State Penitentiary Service (SPtS) reported that ‘117,440 persons were held in 181 institutions belonging to the sphere of administration of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine. In addition, 117,512 persons convicted of criminal offences not involving deprivation of liberty are registered in 697 units of the criminal-executive inspectorate.’

From June 2014, institutions located in Crimea ceased to be included in the general statistical data, and thus the number of institutions ‘belonging to the sphere of administration of the SPtS’ decreased from 181 to 177. The number of criminal-executive inspectorate units changed from 697 to 669. At that time, approximately three thousand inmates were held in the Crimean institutions excluded from the data.

The number of persons in the remaining 177 institutions decreased monthly and, as of the 1st of each month, was as follows (see table):

The Penitentiary Service has admitted that, since approximately September, it has not controlled 28 institutions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions; yet, when publishing statistical data for the entire period until the end of the year, the inmates of these institutions were supposedly included. For instance, the SPtS report as of 1 December 2014 stated:

As of 1 December 2014, 79,750 persons were held in 177 institutions belonging to the sphere of administration of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine. 88,632 persons convicted of criminal offences not involving deprivation of liberty and administrative penalties are registered in 669 units of the criminal-executive inspectorate.

A remark that inmates from these 28 institutions in the country's east, on territories not controlled by the authorities, were not being counted appeared for the first time in the department’s statistical data as of 1 January 2015. This report looked like this:

At present, 177 institutions and 669 units of the criminal-executive inspectorate are under the administration of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine.

As of 1 January 2015, 73,431 persons were held in penal institutions and pre-trial detention centres (excluding institutions located on the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities).

The number of persons held in those 28 institutions is approximately known. According to information published on the department’s website in December 2014, ‘in connection with military aggression against Ukraine in its eastern regions, a number of penal institutions remained on territory temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, namely:

- 14 institutions in the Donetsk region, where 9.7 thousand persons were held;

- 14 institutions in the Luhansk region, where 6.5 thousand persons were held.’

Together, this amounts to 16.2 thousand persons, or about 18% of all inmates in the country. If these are added to the number of persons held in institutions on controlled territory—73,431 persons—it totals approximately 89.6 thousand persons. This is very strange, because the number of residents in the criminal-executive system institutions had been decreasing regularly since 1 August by no more than 2–6 thousand persons monthly, and there were no ‘jumps’ in the decrease of inmates by a magnitude of around 16 thousand. It is also difficult to imagine for what reasons the total number of persons ‘in 177 institutions’ could have suddenly grown from 79.7 thousand on 1 December to 89.6 thousand on 1 January.

One might assume that the number of institutions whose residents the department stopped counting actually changed gradually. However, this was not reflected in the reports published by the department. In fact, the department provided inaccurate data.

A little more specificity appears in the Penitentiary Service’s statistical data as of 1 February 2015. The exact number of institutions in controlled territory is now provided—150—and the number of inmates provided pertains specifically to these institutions.

The wonders of penitentiary statistics are also eloquently demonstrated by the example of the number of life-sentenced persons. Their number was constantly increasing, by 50–60 persons over the year. Previously, only a few left this group of prisoners—either due to death or a change in sentence. The SPtS data on the change in their numbers over the last six months are provided in the table above. In the text published on the SPtS website, the department does not provide any explanation as to where more than 120 life-sentenced persons disappeared between 1 October and 1 November. After 1 December, more than 140 life-sentenced persons ‘disappeared’ from the data. Even in the data for 1 February 2015, the number of life-sentenced prisoners is 21 less than in the data for 1 January. One can only guess the reasons for such sharp changes in the number of life-sentenced prisoners.

More or less everything is clear regarding the number of inmates in educational colonies—it changed gradually in 2014, and all those changes are logical. There are no educational institutions in non-controlled territories.

The number of convicted women decreased by half over the eight months of 2014: from 5,240 to 2,753. This decrease may contain a component caused by the loss of control over at least one institution—Snezhnoye EC-127 in the Donetsk region. However, about 200 women were held there. Yet, the department reports nothing about these circumstances.

Unexplained changes also occurred in the sphere of pre-trial detention. In May, the SPtS had 24 pre-trial detention centres and 8 institutions with pre-trial functions (32 in total), and from June onwards, there were 23 pre-trial detention centres + the same 8 institutions (31 institutions in total). This number held until December. Suddenly, as of 1 January, the SPtS ends up with only 13 pre-trial detention centres, but the number of institutions with pre-trial functions grew to 18; still, the total is the same number—31 institutions. At least two of them are in non-controlled territory. But whether penitentiary statistics count their inmates is unknown.

Only in the data for 1 February does the number of these institutions decrease by two—to 29. However, the number of persons held in custody disappears from the provided data because only the total number of residents in pre-trial detention centres—convicted and those held in custody—is given.

Finally, there are more riddles regarding the change in the number of convicted persons registered with the criminal-executive inspectorate. The decrease in their number between 1 May and 1 June by almost 9 thousand persons is understandable—a certain contribution to this figure is explained by the decrease in the number of CEI units from 697 to 669 due to the exclusion of Crimean ones. However, from 1 August, when the number of convicts was counted across all remaining CEI units, until 1 January 2015, the monthly changes in the number of convicts registered with the CEI were about one thousand persons. At the same time, it is obvious that there are at least several dozen CEI units in the non-controlled territory of the east, and the number of persons registered in them is unlikely to be less than 13–14 thousand. The SPtS statistical data as of 1 January do not ‘react’ to this circumstance in any way. It is not clear whether the convicts registered with the CEI in the non-controlled territory are included in the total official figure of 87,581 persons or not.

Only from the statistical data for 1 February 2015 can it be assumed that the decrease in the number of persons registered with the CEI from 87,581 to 76,148 is the result of the corresponding exclusion of the number of persons registered in the 47 CEI units removed from the data.

And regarding the indicator of the number of inmates per 100,000 population: if one estimates the population of Ukraine, excluding Crimean residents, at 42.9 million people and assumes that no more than a million inhabitants have left the country, then this indicator as of 1 January 2015, based on rough calculations, is in the range of 209–213.

The indicated contradictions in the statistics of the SPtS of Ukraine significantly complicate the analysis of trends in the number of persons in the criminal-executive system’s institutions and distort the real state of affairs within the department. Ambiguities in the disclosure of statistical data are a rather alarming indicator of the professional attitude of the department’s responsible officials towards the performance of their duties. To restore trust in the information disseminated by the SPtS of Ukraine, it is necessary to immediately rectify the situation and significantly improve the thoroughness of data preparation. At the same time, it is important to clearly and unambiguously define the context of the information being disclosed.