A General Evaluation
In the authors' opinion, the reforms of 1958—61 laid the foundation for the later
reforms.
Given the historical context of those reforms, the severe criticism to
which modern reformers subject it is unjustified. The Criminal Procedure Code of 1960, in
fact, brought Russia back to the fold of civilized justice, restored the principles of
legitimacy, independence of judges, the presumption of innocence, and the right of the
accused to legal counsel, among other things. Judicial arbitrariness and the use of terror
were reduced, the number of political offenses dropped significantly, many offenses were
decriminalized, and the maximum term of prison punishment was reduced from 25 to 15 years.
The present draft of the criminal code provides for the former maximum of 25 years to life
sentence and applies it to a broader range of criminal offenses.
The Golden Age of the GULAG
Older prisoners refer to the period from Stalin's death in 1953 until the beginning of
the 1960's as the "Golden Age of the GULAG."
Khrushchev's thaw brought comparatively more change to the prison system than to life in
the outside world.
The changes of the second half of the 1950s in the penitentiary system
related not only to the release of political prisoners, a dramatic decline in the prison
population, and the closure of hundreds of camps; it was also a period of intensive and
innovative reform of prison life. Many of them approximated life in half-way houses in the
West. The number of prisoners in a colony did not exceed
500—600 persons. Prisoners hardly differed from regular citizens. They wore civilian
clothes. Many were allowed to hold jobs on the outside. The rest were allowed to move
freely about the camp. There were no limits on visitations, correspondence, packages or
shopping. There was a reward system for good behavior, and "open door" days when
relatives and locals could get acquainted with conditions at the camps. Women could visit
male camps, and vice-versa. There was no differentiation of prisoners by criminal record.
Special camps and prisons were established only for professional criminals and criminal
leaders. By the beginning of the 1960s there was little evidence of once thriving criminal
sub-cultures in the penal institutions. These subcultures had served as breeding grounds
for professional criminals.
The GULAG
Returns. The End of Khrushchev's Thaw
The success of the reforms and assorted experiments left open the possibility for
replacing the GULAG with a civilized criminal justice
system. Thus the end result of the legal reform is all the more striking: in 1962,
restrictions and limitations were
introduced that exceeded even those of Stalin's camps. Prison life was
regulated down to the smallest detail: from the number of letters that can be sent home to
shaving of male prisoners' heads and abolition for women to wear night gowns. The
Stalin-era impetus for labor was restored: a piece of bread for the half-hungry man.
Places of confinement were closed to the public. Just as in the Stalinist period,
large-capacity correctional institutions (housing 2,000 or more inmates) were encouraged.
Differentiation of prisoners by offense was introduced. While
legislation provided for 12 types of institutions, departmental regulations created the
need for more and different types of institutions. In 1990 in the USSR, there were about
60 types of correctional institutions. As a result, most prisoners served their terms
thousands of kilometers away from home.
This amounted to the return of the GULAG
with its proclivity for punishment as an administrative tool. The old myths were merely
refitted: "overcoming the cult of personality", "building the
communism", and "restoration of legitimacy" became "industrial
plans" and "political education", etc. Departmental and law-enforcement
oversight was strengthened with the stated goal of guaranteeing prisoners' rights. In
reality, this merely meant passive forms of repression were added to the already
stepped-up 'active' regimen. These methods were developed in part the Internal Ministry
and partly by local authorities. Implementation of the new methods was made easier by the
fact that the prisons had been closed to the public.
An Attempt at
Understanding the Lesson of the 1958—1961 Reforms
The new measures were introduced without public statement, thus marking the end of
Khrushchev's thaw. The struggle against crime and economic problems were given as
justification for the revisions. Analyzing the real reasons for failure of the legal
reform of 1958—61, the authors of the report present a number of working hypotheses. The
first is related to the peculiarities of the Soviet social context.
First and foremost, the public and the authorities did not function in
the same social sphere. This makes timely address of social problems difficult.
Thus a proper response to social problems was most often the fruit of
chance or the whim of the authorities.
The criminal justice system can serve as a good reflection of Soviet
society as a whole. While the response to crime in Western societies is conditioned by
available resources and the crime rate, the structure of the Soviet system was based far
more on institutional needs. Moscow, for instance, has few penitentiary facilities despite
a high rate of crime; 90% of inmates from the city serve their sentences elsewhere. Such
an environment encourages penitentiaries to adopt a great number of repressive measures in
the hopes of widening their reputations as effective facilities.
The reformer in such a system finds himself in a curious predicament.
Not having the basic facts he needs to form a constructive plan, his ideas grow more and
more idealistic. They can tend either to the progressive or the reactionary, but the
results of an idealistic plan are usually all too real. Undoubtedly, other factors also
contribute to the course and duration of the reforms. They can be favorable, as those in
the time of Gorbachev, when there was strong support from Western countries, or tragic
ones, as those in Khrushchev's period. But the fate of reforms usually lies in the reforms
themselves.
Socio-Cultural
Aspects of the Reforms of 1958—1961
The failure of prison reform is a failure for all of society. According to the results
of studies conducted by the MCPR, a unified prison
subculture complete with social hierarchy, an unofficial code of behavior and an
antagonistic attitude toward prison authorities had formed over the entire territory of
the USSR by the end of the 60s.
Those who violated the prison code and collaborated with the
administration were subject violent retribution, including ritual rape and subsequent
ostracization.
The authors of this report consider the formation of this subculture a
direct consequence of such innovations as the closing of penal institutions, an increase
in the number of prisoners per institution, the reinstitution of camp-like institutions,
and the differentiation of prisoners by category, the latter bringing about homogeneous
groupings of prisoners. Passive methods of repression led to ingrained social traits that
further exacerbated the formation of these small groups. The spread of the subculture was
aided by the high prison population in a particular institution and regular transportation
of great numbers of prisoners from one region to another.
The report gives in detail other consequences related to the
establishment of the prisoners' subculture. One of them is the atmosphere of confrontation
between administration and prisoners, determining a whole set of secondary problems, such
as permanent destabilizing factors in the operation of penal facilities, i.e. cases of
hostage-taking, riots, mass protest actions and others. Such events happened repeatedly
over the last three decades, and have only become known over the last five or six years.
The atmosphere that developed out of the subculture and the
administration's attempt to suppress it was lethal not only to any attempts at
constructive change, but even to basic functioning and maintenance.
The formation and spread of the prison sub-culture brought about
consequences outside of prison walls. Above all, it resulted in the growth of professional
and organized crime.
This section explores another important problem, namely the difficulty
for independent researchers in diagnosing and addressing social problems in a closed
environment. Institutional research centers were limited to exploring institutional
questions; research on the burgeoning subculture was left to individual researchers, and
did not see the light of day until the late 1980's .
The chance of such research having a positive impact on the system is
obviously minimal. To this day prisons are open primarily only for journalists, thus
limiting research efforts.
A collapse in the morale of prison personnel in the 1970's and 80's led
to a general identity crisis. Workers doubted that their work was useful or respectable.
As several researchers have noted, restoring the moral authority of the system can be
accomplished only by restoring the moral authority of the administration, and vice-versa.
Unless something is done, the system will continue to degrade.
The great contrast between ideological myths and reality inherent in
Soviet totalitarian ideology not only produced a sort of double standard, but also
deformed the legal system: legislation does not comply with the general operating rules.
This gaping distinction between the system on paper and the system in real life blurred
the border between lawful and unlawful conduct, broke the connection between law and
morale and at the same time developed an exceptional ability to continue functioning
outside of the law.
The prison staff demoralization is one of the key problems of the
concept. It should not be regarded as merely a problem of providing a decent way of life
for penitentiary workers. We do not doubt that this job must be among the highest paid.
But we should bear it in mind that professional criminals can always pay much more for
certain services than any state can afford. The level of professional training does not
play a crucial part here as well. These two incentives (salary and professional training)
are far from the main ones.
The authors of the report doubt that the problem of restoring morale in prison
personnel can be solved within the existing structures and systems of staff training. A
perhaps more effective way of solving this problem is to fundamentally restructure the
penitentiary system. This approach could create in the community, a fresh attitude to
former problems. Unlike the "old guards", workers in a new type of penitentiary
might receive much more favorable reviews from press and general population alike.
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A
General Evaluation