Celebrating Department Day in a women's penal colony

22 April marks 10 years since the establishment of the State Department of Ukraine for the Execution of Sentences.
The staff of penal bodies and institutions perform work of great social importance. This work involves a constant drain on emotional and physical strength: persistent stressful situations and overwork, and emotional tension caused by the specific organisation of duty, “from reveille to lights out”, increased duty variants in the event of complicated operational conditions within the colony itself, as well as during periods of escalating situations in penal institutions of other regions, during political actions in the state, and during the celebration of state and religious holidays. This means that for more than a third of their working hours, employees serve in an irregular regime, including on public and bank holidays, which narrows their sphere of family interaction, results in insufficient attention to child-rearing, and so on.
Work in correctional institutions affects the staff. On one hand, they are required to ensure security and order; on the other hand, they must realise that inmates will, sooner or later, return to society. Places of detention are sites of constant conflict, accompanied by outbursts of disobedience and violence from inmates who are dissatisfied with their situation. Both inmates and staff can fall victim to this. The higher the level of professional training of the staff, the better they are able to identify problems and sources of danger and to apply timely preventive measures to reduce risk. Only the constant readiness of the staff to be attentive to the personal problems of inmates, their ability to establish contact during conflict situations, and professionalism in resolving them will eliminate the serious problems in the penal system that exist today.
A concert, organised by members of the charitable organisation “Chernihiv Women's Human Rights Centre”, the Department for Family and Youth of the Chernihiv City Council, and the Chernihiv City Monitoring Commission, served as a gift to the staff of the Chernihiv Women's Penal Colony for their professional holiday.
Artists from the “MoZART” production centre and members of the “7*Ya” KVN team performed for the staff of the Chernihiv Women's Penal Colony.