In Search of a Solution:
Crime, Criminal Policy and
Prison Facilities
in the Former
Soviet Union
Moscow Center for Prison Reform
B. Zlatoustinski per., 8/7, apt. 68, 73
Moscow 101000, Russia
Tel: (7-095) 206-8684/206-8497/206-8769
Fax: (7-095) 921-1209
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact: Valery Abramkin, Director
Russia
According to the Moscow Center for Prison Reform, since 1992 more than a million people arrested for crimes ranging from petty theft to contract killings have been sent to pre-trial detention centers known in Russia as SIZOs (sledstvennii izolatori). Delays in coming to trial and other factors make the average stay of a prisoner in these notorious facilities 10 months. Some remain in SIZOs after being sentenced to a labor camp simply because the MVD lacks funds for train passage to the camps. In conditions of severe overcrowding, malnutrition and violence�in the Moscow SIZO Matrosskaya Tishina, the number of inmates exceeds capacity by 420%�a
few months can take their toll; a significant number of arrestees die in SIZOs.
Concludes Valery Abramkin in In Search of a Solution: �Since 1992 Russian SIZOs have become institutions of torture... The first thing that I propose to do is stop discussing drafts of new criminal, criminal-procedural and criminal-executive codes, and begin immediately to save people dying in our prisons and colonies.�
Following are other excerpts from the study:
Moldova
�Moldova occupies one of the last places among countries of the former communist bloc in the number of
prisoners relative to population (210 per 100,000)... Not one of the NIS countries publishes as much detailed
information about penitentiary institutions as Moldova. It is worth noting that Moldova�s mild criminal policy,
carried out in very harsh economic, social and political conditions, has not engen-dered an outburst of
crime...during recent years Moldovan authorities managed to stop [the rise] and even slightly reduce the crime
rate in the country.�
Uzbekistan
�Uzbekistan�s peni-tentiary system has remained basically unchanged since independence was declared. It is
extremely militar-ized and centralized, and bureaucracy takes priority over the tasks of actual corrections... Very
little information about the criminal justice system is available.�
Ukraine
�During the first seven months of 1995, 313 [MVD, Ministry of Internal Affairs] officers were arrested and 202
were convicted. 865 criminal cases were opened against 1,094 officers of the MVD department...Minister of
Internal Affairs Yuri Kravchenko confessed that the militia had a higher crime rate than the general population.
�I was horrified,� head of the Crimea Main MVD Department, Mikhail Kornilenko said at a press conference, �to
learn of the illegal activity of militia officers.��
Belarus
�The Belarus criminal justice system remains closed and departmental regula-tions are not published. In
particular, Belarus MVD authorities refused to provide [the] Belarus Human Rights League with instructions and
other normative acts regulating the condi-tions of detention... It was said that these documents were for internal
use only... The government does not publish information about the number of people sentenced to death and
executed in the Belarus Republic.�
To obtain a copy of In Search of a Solution, or for further information about MCPR, contact Valery Abramkin at the Moscow Center for Prison Reform.
This article is from the September/October 1996 issue of
Civil Society ... East and West
For more information or to order a
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The URL for this page is: http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~ccsi/csew/96-09/srchsolv.htm
Last updated: March 1997
