Pokrovskaya Correctional Colony (No. 17)
The State Institution “Pokrovskaya Correctional Colony (No. 17)” is a specialised medium-security penal institution for the detention of men sentenced to imprisonment for a specific term who suffer from tuberculosis.
The institution is located in the village of Pokrovske in the Izium District of the Kharkiv region and is part of the structure of the State Penal Service of Ukraine. The history of the institution began on 23 June 1961, when Corrective Labour Colony No. 17 was established on the basis of the “Balakliiskyi” state farm by Order No. 0165 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR and Order No. 071 of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Kharkiv region dated 1 July 1961.
The institution was located approximately 80 kilometres from Kharkiv and 20 kilometres from Balakliia. From its first years of operation, the colony had a pronounced agricultural profile. Convicts were engaged in the cultivation of agricultural produce, animal husbandry, and the maintenance of the state farm’s production facilities. For this reason, the institution functioned as an agricultural correctional colony for a long time.
In the 1970s, due to a change in the categories of convicts sent to the institution, the organisation of production and the detention regime were changed. After the closure of open production facilities, the main volume of convict labour was transferred to contractor enterprises.
During this same period, the medical-labour unit was separated into an independent institution, which subsequently became the Balakliia Correctional Centre No. 106. A new stage in the colony’s development began in 1995, when a specialised tuberculosis ward for the treatment of convicts suffering from tuberculosis was opened at the institution. It was later expanded and reorganised into an inter-regional tuberculosis hospital, which provided specialised medical care to convicts from various regions of Ukraine.
It was thanks to the creation of this medical facility that the Pokrovskaya Correctional Colony became one of the state’s main specialised penal medical centres. After the reform of penal medicine, the specialised hospital was transferred to the structure of the State Institution “Health Care Centre of the State Penal Service of Ukraine”.
Today, a multi-disciplinary hospital of the branch of the Health Care Centre of the State Penal Service of Ukraine in the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions operates on the territory of the colony, providing specialised treatment to convicts, including those with tuberculosis, in accordance with modern medical care standards.
With the onset of the full-scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation in 2022, the Izium District of the Kharkiv region found itself in a zone of active combat operations. The institution operated under conditions of constant threat of shelling and military risks.
Despite the extremely difficult security situation, the institution’s administration ensured the continuity of the execution of sentences, the functioning of the medical unit, and the provision of necessary medical care to convicts.
Today, the State Institution “Pokrovskaya Correctional Colony (No. 17)” remains the only specialised penal institution in the Kharkiv region for the detention of convicts in need of tuberculosis treatment.
Combining the functions of sentence execution with the provision of specialised medical care makes it one of the key facilities of the Ukrainian penal system in the field of treating socially dangerous infectious diseases.
Contact information State Institution “Pokrovskaya Correctional Colony (No. 17)”, village of Pokrovske, Izium District, Kharkiv region, 64266
Head of the institution: Andrii Ivanovych KLYMENKO
Telephone: (057) 341-40-11 E-mail: [email protected]