Kremenchuk Educational Colony
The State Institution “Kremenchuk Educational Colony” is the only educational colony in Ukraine designated for the execution of sentences regarding male minors sentenced to imprisonment.
The institution is located in the city of Kremenchuk, Poltava region, and is part of the structure of the State Penal Service of Ukraine.
The history of the institution dates back to the first post-war years. In 1947–1948, a transit prison complex was built on the territory of the modern colony, through which convicts were sent to corrective labour camps.
On 11 February 1952, the prison was liquidated by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and a children’s labour colony for minor convicts with a capacity of 300 places was created on its base.
The first head of the institution was Oleksandr Zdorenko. After the 1953 amnesty, the institution was temporarily reorganised into a children’s educational colony for children who did not have a criminal record and were directed there by state bodies.
The following year, the colony was again repurposed into a children’s labour colony for minors convicted of committing criminal offences.
It was from this time that its development as a specialised institution for the execution of sentences regarding minors began. Over the next decades, the colony’s material and technical base was actively developed. A general education school, a vocational school, production workshops, a sports complex, a swimming pool, training and production workshops, auxiliary farming, and other social infrastructure facilities were created. Pupils received a general secondary education, professional skills, and participated in creative circles, sports sections, and production activities. Subsequently, tailoring, metalworking, and the manufacture of industrial products were mastered at the colony. An important chapter in the institution’s history was the conduct of an experiment in 1988 to introduce a new model of an educational colony.
The Kremenchuk Corrective Labour Colony became the only institution in Ukraine selected to participate in a USSR-wide experiment aimed at humanising the execution of sentences regarding minors. Within its framework, a social adaptation section and parent committees were created, and opportunities for education, social support, and preparation of pupils for release were expanded.
These approaches significantly predated modern standards of juvenile justice and the resocialisation of minors. After the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence, the institution became part of the national penal system, and subsequently, the State Penal Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.
The main areas of its activity remain the ensuring of the execution of sentences regarding minors, their attainment of a full general secondary education, professional training, psychological support, social and educational work, and preparation for reintegration into society.
The principle of the “best interests of the child”, provided for by international standards for the treatment of minors, in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Beijing Rules, the Havana Rules, and the European Prison Rules, is actively implemented in the colony.
Significant attention is paid to maintaining family ties, the development of pupils’ personalities, and the involvement of non-governmental, charitable, and religious organisations in the process of their resocialisation.
With the onset of the full-scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation, the institution continues to perform its functions, ensuring conditions for the detention of minors, the continuity of the educational process, psychological support, and the preparation of pupils for return to society under martial law.
Contact information State Institution “Kremenchuk Educational Colony”, 10/30 Likaria O. Bohaievskoho St, Kremenchuk, Poltava region, 39600
Head of the institution: Vitalii Petrovych TUPYIHIN
Telephone: (0536) 73-15-72