I see three ways of reducing the number of prisoners. First way – through trials: an
opportunity to commute confinement into fine imposing or home arrest, as they do it in the
West. The wealthy West can’t afford keeping so many prisoners. Once I asked a Dutch
official: “How many prisoners do you have?”
He said: “Twelve thousand”.
I asked: “And how many seats are available in the cells?” (to know to what extent
they are full).
He shrugged his shoulders: “I said – twelve thousand”.
“And what if there will be 13 thousand?”
“Then they will stay at home and wait... When their turn comes, we call them, they
take their suitcase and go to prison”.
It means that there exist civilized methods we are not able to afford yet, even in the
twenty first century they will be regarded as almost unreal. But we must be striving for
it. Home arrest is quite possible now (the police supervise those released under
surveillance when they regularly come to register with the police station). Why not use
police inspectors or local bodies? Sure, the officials are corrupted... But it will lessen
punishment in some way. Instead of confining a convict, torturing and exposing him to risk
of being raped by his cellmates (which quite often happens among teenagers), he might be
sentenced to home arrest and serve his term at home; if he doesn’t break the rules or
run away, no sense making a convict serve his term in jail. Sure, there will be some
percentage of runaways but even jails are broken.
The second way is amnesty. In Russia, it’s only the State Duma that enacts the
amnesty decree. For the time being, the deputies are not likely to enact amnesty decrees,
and the last amnesty was the best evidence of this fact: the whole year they were debating
and reducing the number of clauses subject to amnesty... Finally, five pensioners were
released . Now, everything can be reduced to an absurdity. I mean that efforts that
amnesty supporters make are often brought to naught by the results. I don’t mean,
however, that all attempts are to be abandoned.
I don’t mind amnesty being proclaimed on, say, holidays and anniversary occasions...
But do keep in mind that in the rational West long ago they came to conclusion that
amnesty as a way of reducing prisoners was not effective. The last time it took place was
in Spain, after Franco’s death. This is the only large amnesty that I know of. Nowhere
in Europe amnesty is declared now.
I remember, however, that once Italian president ordered, at his own risk, to release
prisoners from the remand houses. It happened a few years ago, their prisons were full.
The headline of one Italian paper read “Rogues, go ahead!”. It were only rogues, not
sadists, rapist or drugsters that were set free. A few thousands of rogues were set free
at once, it’s quite a lot for Italy. It’s another solution. But not amnesty.
President, acting contrary to public opinion and apparently laws, risked and the risk paid
off. Later this experience was highly appreciated.
As our remand houses are full, why not our President, just to make his rating go up,
unload jails in the way the Italians did. I can send him a clip from the Italian paper
(I’m trying to find it now) describing this case.
Third way is a collective act of grace, as it was in France. It’s a big country whose
democratic traditions and laws we are oriented to. That’s why their experience is
interesting and useful for us. We found out about the collective act of grace while
meeting with the pardon board. In most of the countries, pardon boards act under
ministries of justice, except Britain where pardon functions are implemented by the
Interior Ministry pardon department. But Britain has no Ministry of Justice as such.
What is collective act of grace? Once a year the pardon board of Ministry of Justice
makes lists. It’s a big work. While amnesty for groups of convicts is carried out by
clauses, pardon is granted to individuals. The board officials are making the list
throughout the year, they work on it and include persons convicted for petty crimes who
are due to be released soon. Many rogues are released, as in Italy. The pardon list in
France includes 5 or 6 thousand persons.
- They have 54 thousands prisoners, which makes up 10 percent...
- That’s right. As many as half of their prisoners were convicted for traffic
offences. The officials say it helps them free the cells for next prisoners. In the
Bastille day these persons are granted collective pardon by the President’s decree. The
Ministry of Justice officials say: we don’t make a splash about acts of grace to avoid
public concern. For them, as well as for us, this is a delicate matter too: not everyone
realizes that pardon is a necessary act, people are getting nervous, media are making a
fuss of it and playing on public sentiments: look, someone was killed in the street today,
and you set the killers free and so on. They say: we do it without talking about it.
Nothing has gone wrong so far.
When we went back from France (apart from me there were Ivanushkin and Vitsin), we
proposed that war veterans should be granted collective pardon, it was the war
anniversary. A list of 400-500 prisoners was made. We did not discuss each person
individually, we all worked on the list, I mean the representatives of the Ministry of
Justice, the department and me on behalf of the Commission. Every Commission member read
or looked through the files, especially dubious ones. We met again and agreed on each
dubious name. We made the list and proposed that the President should release these poor
old people, and our proposal was met. The experience of collective act of grace do exist
though we never called it so.
I presume, the last way is most suitable for us. I don’t reject others but they have
little to do with the Commission work. Together with the Ministry of Justice, your
organization and other public organizations I am ready to work on a letter to President
explaining, on a base of economic and other calculations, that no country in the world can
afford having so many prisoners. The prisoner’s budget is to be assessed in economic
terms, and include not only food costs, but also security, maintenance and other expenses.
The economic effect of prisoners reduction must be provided in figures. The letter must be
very simple and provide the current costs of prisoners compared with the expected payoff
after reduction has been made. The idea will be obviously supported by directors of all
penal colonies. In the letters that we receive from
them, they are complaining they have no food for prisoners, no money to pay electricity
bills, it would be better to release part of prisoners instead of torturing them and
undermining their health. There must be a separate paragraph in the list containing
statistics and proposals on tuberculosis and AIDS. Some other diseases can be added but
these two ones must be necessary. The Interior Minister Stepashin might be attracted, he
is very intelligent person and I trust he will give you support.
There must be a separate list of consumptive prisoners because, first, the tuberculosis
is very contagious, second, they are dying due to lack of medications, hospitals and so
on, and third, not all of them are dangerous criminals.
The above sick must be on the top of the collective pardons lists, their release will
not only reduce the budget (hospitals, medications, medical personnel) but also save other
people, a dangerous source of tuberculosis epidemic in penitentiary houses.
