Sentenced adult women serve their terms in the colony-settlements,
correctional colonies of general and strict regime, and by the court decision they can
serve a part of their terms in prisons (in isolated blocks and sections).
There are 32 colonies for adult female prisoners. In late 1997 they housed 38,800. Two
of these are of strict regime and other 30 – general regime. There is one closed prison
having two separate blocks: one for those transferred from general regime colonies,
another is for those from strict regime. 10 of 32 women colonies have so called «Houses
of Mother and Child» holding the children under 3 years old. The numbers of those
convicts who are having the children in the Houses of children — 360 (the late
1997).
Three colonies are designed for women under 18 years age. In 1997 they housed 1262
girls.
This number of institutions cannot be considered as sufficient because the convicted
women cannot be placed, as it is provided by law, in the colonies near their homes. It is
more true in respect to the girls under 18 since there are only three institutions to
house them for the whole Russia. Our recommendation is to arrange smaller prisons in each
province, in all big cities.
The average age of women in custody is 36 years. 53,9% of female prisoners were married
at the time of imprisonment. During imprisonment 54.2% of women got divorced. 2.7% of
women got married during imprisonment.
During the last decade the portion of the women sentenced to long terms has been
increased. Russian academicians have been studied the effects of the long imprisonment on
women and made a conclusion that the prison had embittered and corrupted women rather than
corrected them. Long terms just ruin female personality and often the courts do not
sentence female offenders to imprisonment if their crime do not present public danger. In
practice it means that if the term is less that one year, a woman is left at freedom.
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