Instead of Life Imprisonment—a 25-Year Prison Term

The Criminal Code of Ukraine contains 12 articles that provide for punishment ranging from 10 to 15 years of imprisonment or, as an alternative, life imprisonment. Thus, in practice, the range of punishment for these crimes is, as a rule, from 10 years of imprisonment to a theoretical 50–60 years. Moreover, there is a significant gap between imprisonment for 15 years and life imprisonment, and such a gap can amount to several decades, for example, 40 or 50 years. This leads to situations where a court, when choosing a measure of punishment, may consider a 15-year prison sentence insufficient but lacks the authority to impose any punishment other than the maximum—life imprisonment.
Upon receiving a life sentence, convicted persons are deprived of the opportunity to benefit from amnesty or parole, unlike those receiving a 15-year prison sentence. Furthermore, they are held under the most stringent regime.
If the Criminal Code of Ukraine contained the possibility to impose a punishment in the form of imprisonment for 20, 25, or 30 years, then courts, in cases where they consider a 15-year prison sentence too light and life imprisonment too severe, could impose these 20, 25, or 30 years of imprisonment. Convicted persons would not be deprived of the right to parole and, therefore, would have more realistic prospects for release than with life imprisonment, as well as incentives for proper behavior while serving their sentence.
Currently, there are legislative initiatives proposing the introduction of parole for life-sentenced persons.
However, in our view, arguments that one should not attempt to change the upper limit of punishment for a specific term from 15 years of imprisonment to 25–30 years, on the grounds that the likely introduction of parole for life-sentenced prisoners would supposedly grant them the opportunity to be released after 15–20 years of serving their sentence anyway, are categorically unacceptable.
The most important distinction between these two algorithms for the possible release of a person sentenced to a long term is that a person sentenced to life is not at all certain that after 15–20 years they will have a real opportunity to be released on parole, especially considering that the realization of such a possibility is entirely in the hands of the institution’s administration. Because of this, the institution’s administration effectively holds levers of psychological pressure over the prisoner, which are not always lawful or justified.
At the same time, a person sentenced, for example, to 25 years of imprisonment, will know from the first day of serving their sentence that, even if it takes 25 years, they are guaranteed to be released, and the institution’s administration will not be able to prevent this release. And good behavior by the convicted person during the serving of the sentence can be a factor that brings closer a release that will definitely happen someday, rather than being merely a factor on which the release depends in principle. Therefore, the psychological climate of serving the sentence will be more favorable from the very first day.
Furthermore, the proposed innovations would reduce the growth rate of the number of persons sentenced to life imprisonment, and thus would lower the burden on the penitentiary service regarding the additional outfitting of new places for holding life-sentenced persons.
It is worth noting that introducing a maximum punishment for a specific term of 25–30 years of imprisonment will not significantly change the situation regarding the severity of punishment.
Thus, in the case of sentencing a person to 30 years of imprisonment, they would obtain the right to parole after serving 3/4 of the sentence term, i.e., after 22 and a half years.
If a person receives life imprisonment, they will have no right to parole at all, and can only apply for a pardon after serving 20 years of the sentence. At the same time, if the pardon petition is successful, they could receive a 25-year prison term instead of life imprisonment.
Moreover, upon receiving a sentence for a specific—albeit long—term, the convicted person will not feel a sense of hopelessness as they would with life imprisonment and will have more realistic chances of being released.
And judges will then be able to impose life imprisonment exclusively in cases of committing truly extremely grave crimes, rather than when the court considers a 15-year prison sentence an inadequately lenient punishment and is forced, without any choice, to impose life imprisonment.
To implement this initiative, it is proposed to replace the word “fifteen” with “twenty-five” in the General Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, in Article 63, Part 2, in the sentence: “Imprisonment is established for a term of one to fifteen years.”
Simultaneously, in Article 71, Part 2, in the fragment “and in the event that at least one of the crimes is particularly grave, the total term of imprisonment may be longer than fifteen years, but must not exceed twenty-five years,” it is proposed to replace the last words with: “the total term of imprisonment may be longer than twenty-five years, but must not exceed thirty years.”
Taking into account that, according to the data of the State Judicial Administration, during the period from 1 January 2012 to the first half of 2015 inclusive, 157 persons were sentenced to life imprisonment, of whom 154 were convicted under Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (intentional murder), it is proposed to amend only three articles in the Special Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine—Articles 110, 115, and 258—in which the limit for applying punishment for a specific term is increased from 15 years to 25 years for committing grave crimes provided for by these articles.
Currently, over 1,500 convicted persons are serving life sentences in Ukraine. Among them, there are surely those who received such a sentence because the judges considered a 15-year prison sentence insufficient, and therefore, without choice, imposed the only punishment possible at that time—life imprisonment. Precisely for this reason, in view of the above, and considering that all previous life sentences were handed down in a situation where judges had to choose between 15 years of imprisonment and life imprisonment, it is proposed to give such convicted persons the opportunity to try “trying on” the proposed innovations for themselves.
The introduction of more adequate application of criminal punishments for particularly grave crimes should reduce the level of application of the most severe punishment—life imprisonment—and also provide more prospects for release to persons convicted of particularly grave crimes, while also stimulating them toward proper behavior while serving their sentence.
“Donetsk Memorial” has submitted a draft law “On the Streamlining of Criminal Punishments for Particularly Grave Crimes” aimed at introducing more adequate application of criminal punishments for particularly grave crimes.
In the event that the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code are adopted, it is perhaps worth providing for transitional provisions in the law aimed at introducing a new approach to the application of punishment for grave criminal offenses. It is proposed to grant all persons sentenced to life imprisonment under the articles that have been amended the opportunity, within, for example, two years after the entry into force of the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code, to apply to the Supreme Court of Ukraine with a petition to replace their life sentence with imprisonment for a specific term. Thereby, in some cases, life imprisonment could be replaced by imprisonment for a specific term, and thus the number of life-sentenced persons could be reduced.