As we mentioned above, the Law of June 12 abolished the majority of
disciplinary punishments: the deprivation of the right to visitation, purchasing food in
the internal shops, parcels, etc. The limits of application of other types of punishments
were significantly reduced. For example, the placement in ShiZO
(punishment cell) is limited to 15 days at a time and to two months per year. Placement in
PKT (in-colony prison)
cannot exceed six months a year. Earlier reduced rations were also abolished.
However, these quite humane innovations, combined with other processes
going on at that time in the penitentiary system, resulted in a partial lost of control
over prisoners and made the work of staff more difficult.
As a matter of fact, the Soviet correctional labor system inherited by
Russia has a number of specific features.
Not only are all penitentiary services (including medicine and
production) very militarized, but the life of prisoners is also. Harsh labor, involvement
in political-and-educational events, studying in school (for quite a number of prisoners),
and other punishments are obligatory. Potential disturbances are kept down with the aid of
a wide network of informers. The entire system is not closed to public influence and
monitoring. A small staff controls a huge mass of prisoners (from 1,500 to 3,000 in one
institution) by means of cruel treatment and punishment. Without it normal functioning,
stability and budget-saving (even profitable) operation would be impossible.
Since the early 90s the camp industry has been declining because of the
general economic crisis, the uncompetitiveness of slave labor in a new market-type economy
and the inability of commercial services of the colony
to adjust to the new political situation and market conditions. Unemployment among
prisoners and partial elimination of activities to occupy prisoners during their leisure
time destroyed a former way of living in the camp, namely its strict order.
The correctional labor system, once a profit-making institution, now
requires financing from the federal budget not prepared to provide it. The supply of food,
medicines and necessities became irregular. At the same time the administration, in fact,
lost a good part of lawful and habitual methods of controlling prisoners (methods of harsh
penalties). Under the conditions of progressive destabilization, the administration came
to a wider use of passive methods of suppressing prisoners, illegal punishments and
various kinds of punitive actions with the aid of special purpose detachments. In fact, all these legal and semi-legal
methods of control appeared to be more cruel than those legally abolished in 1992.
According to data of human rights organizations and departmental
researchers some abolished punishments (deprivation of visits, parcels, purchasing food)
are still used by prison administrations, though not so widely as before.
Directors of penitentiary institutions openly tell about methods of
these punishments at their seminars. For example, a prisoner is sent to ShiZO on some pretext on the day when his relatives come to
visit him. As a rule, relatives come from faraway places and are limited in time and
money. After the relatives depart, the prisoner may be released from ShiZO in order to save on the time allowance for this kind
of punishment, although the punishment itself was already illegal.
Since the Law of June 12 came into force, the number and cruelty of
passive punishments considerably increased.
It has been generally confirmed that inmates are shaved when they are sent to
punishment cells, they are kept in boxes, sometimes in cages in the open air for 24 hours
without food and water, and without a the chance to relieve themselves. Such facilities as
LPUs and EPKTs are used for
punishments as well as various means of restraint and "as preventative measures"
by spetsnaz units. In the opinions of human rights activists and the Presidential Human
Rights Commission, these innovations are unlawful. It is typical that these innovations
were introduced on a trial basis: LPUs were established 5
years ago and EPKTs 16 years ago. During this time the
Internal Ministry has not bothered to introduce corresponding changes in legislation.
There is nothing surprising in this, if these changes were introduced in the Correctional
Labor Code, these punishments would become less effective because it would become
necessary to define the order of their application, procedures for complaint and the
maximum term of confinement in LPUs.
