0.1% of prisoners serving their sentences are engaged in individual
working activity. According to Dr. Mikhlin, such a low percentage can be explained by the
fact that "prison administration is not psychologically ready to regard a prisoner as
a entrepreneur able to make decisions, take initiative and be active". Only 2% of
prisoners exercised their right to sign an insurance contract and 15.4% their right to use
paid medical service. Dr. Mikhlin notes that wardens of many institutions do not find it
necessary to do anything in this respect, because it is not obligatory.
63.4% of prisoners were not given leaves, 18% did not want to take
them, 14.7% were given leaves without permission to leave ITUs
and only 3.8% were allowed to take leave and visit their families. 62% left colonies due
to exceptional circumstances (death or serious disease of a close relative, natural
disaster etc.) and 2.1% of all prisoners had exceptional circumstances. Only 41.9%
exercise in full their right to visits and 21.7% did not receive a single visit.
Among female prisoners, about 15.8% used completely their right to
visits, half of all women prisoners received no visits. According to official information,
organizing conjugal visits is made difficult by a lack of space; the need for more
capacity was set at 5,800 spaces as of the beginning of 1995. It should be emphasized that
the authors of the Law took into account the lack of visitation rooms when they envisaged
the possibility of receiving visits off-site. However, according to our information, ITKs administrations do not take advantage of this
possibility. Prosecutors have been known to prohibit such visits.
The right to telephone calls was exercised: 1 time by 5.8% of
prisoners; 2 times 4.8%; 3 times 1.9%; 4 times and more 4.5%. 9% of inmates did not use
their right to telephone calls because of the lack of money or relatives and almost 36%
because of the lack of means in ITKs. 38.2% did not want to
exercise their right for telephone calls.
The penitentiary census also revealed that families of 29.3% of the men and 54.2% of
the women fell apart while the inmate served his/her sentence.
