Unofficial response to the ‘Official response of the Department of Corrections to the accusations of certain human rights organisations’
On 25 June 2008, a noteworthy document was posted on the website of the State Department for the Execution of Punishments under the heading ‘Official response of the Department of Corrections to the accusations of certain human rights organisations’ (see http://www.kvs.gov.ua/punish/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=61830&cat_id=45347). In this text, practically not a single specific accusation against the Department is indicated; thus, it is impossible to compare the essence of the accusations with the essence of the justifications, and one has to settle for the ‘reasoned’ departmental commentary. For example, such as: ‘There are many examples where certain civil institutions were interested only in negative, as a rule, subjective or distorted information to increase their prestige at the expense of compromising state structures.’ This allegedly flawlessly stated thesis raises a number of bewildered questions. The first: who is actually interested in subjective and unreliable information? Well, who needs it?.. The second: how can one raise one’s prestige at the expense of compromising state structures? And one can only compromise an organisation that unconditionally possesses a positive reputation. Is this about the Department, or what?..
The Department, not shy about appearing to be a concentration of poorly educated and arrogant people, confidently states that a state structure and public organisations have ‘shared responsibilities (my emphasis) to translate cooperation... into the plane of concrete actions...’ and so on. You have confused something, gentlemen officials. It is you who have responsibilities, because it is you who were hired by taxpayers to carry out ‘concrete actions.’ And human rights activists do not owe anything to you or to the taxpayers. And in connection with this, your lectures to the effect that the activities of human rights organisations should be ‘more active in the directions of providing assistance to convicts after release in solving social and domestic issues and employment’ look, to put it mildly, immodest. You should educate yourselves instead of lecturing someone else. I am not even mentioning that calling a person after release a ‘convict’ is incompetent, ugly, and unpedagogical.
The most amusing part of the ‘Response’ is, undoubtedly, the ‘argument’ against the unimpeded visitation of correctional colonies. I quote: ‘Unprofessional actions of human rights activists can negatively affect the state of the operational situation in institutions, as happened, for example, during the events in Temnivska Correctional Colony (No. 100) on 28 March 2008. A representative of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group was admitted to the territory of the institution. Due to the human rights activist’s inability to maintain a dialogue with the convicts, three of them committed acts of self-mutilation in her presence.’
Before commenting on this seemingly coherent nonsense (and such things do happen), I will allow myself to note that I have communicated with prisoners more than the author of the ‘Response’ has seen cats in his life; therefore, it would be very interesting for me to look at the person who would dare to accuse me of incompetence. And now, to the substance. What kind of operational situation is this, and who are its ‘creators’, that it could be shaken by the influence of one outsider?.. And why did the author of the ‘Response’ ‘modestly’ fail to mention that the terminator-human rights activist, who destroyed the entire operational situation supported by a whole staff of turnkeys and guards with just a few phrases, was merely a modest, intelligent woman?.. And why does the ‘Response’ not say that the prisoners slit their own wrists with blades they brought with them, i.e., they prepared for the demonstrative self-mutilation in advance, without even seeing the human rights activist ‘unable to maintain a dialogue with them’? And which prison ‘virtuosos’ searched these convicts before the conversation? And which prison ‘psycholo-hacks’ were unable to foresee such a logical turn of events? And as a result: perhaps one should not blame a healthy person for one’s own illness? Perhaps it would be more correct to admit one’s own lack of professionalism and inability to talk to convicts? Or at least remain silent and not recall this shameful event?
As an inarticulate example of the groundlessness of any accusations coming from human rights organisations, the ‘Response’ indicates the following. A statement by the Vinnitsa Human Rights Group about the cruelty of the administration of the Lityn Correctional Colony was checked by representatives of the Secretariat of the Commissioner for Human Rights and the regional prosecutor’s office. Not a single fact was confirmed. Well, what impression of this conclusion does the Department expect? That in Ukraine there is at least one thinking person who considers the listed state structures as sinless as Mother Teresa?.. And why were the Vinnitsa human rights activists not admitted to the inspection?
The Department’s dissatisfaction with the fact that the ‘Poryatunok’ (Rescue) parents’ committee is concerned exclusively with their own relatives — convicts sentenced to life imprisonment — while the rest of the convicts do not interest them at all, is bewildering. Well, firstly, this is entirely natural, and secondly, what business is it of yours, gentlemen ‘penitentiaries’[1]? You should be solving your own problems.
The enthusiasm with which the ‘Response’ describes that ‘some “human rights activists” themselves commit unlawful acts: the head of the public human rights organisation ‘Step Forward’, who, moreover, had been previously convicted, was detained for “illegal production, manufacture, acquisition, storage, transportation, or shipment of narcotic substances, psychotropic substances, or their analogues without the intent to sell”.’ is gratifying. Without even being acquainted in absentia with this person, and therefore feeling neither sympathy nor antipathy towards him, I still want to remind the author of the ‘Response’ that, firstly, detention is not proof of involvement in a crime, and, secondly, not so long ago, Ukraine had a Prime Minister who had twice previously served sentences for committing criminal acts. And what, did the Department express any assessments of this fact?
The topic of the closed (open) nature of places of detention is, perhaps, the main ‘feature’ of the ‘Response’. But the ‘logic’ to which the officials resort, proving that the system is wide open, raises doubts about their adequacy and basic common sense. Judge for yourselves. A quote from the middle of the ‘Response’: ‘If the system is closed, then where do the numerous reports from places of detention come from, which are demonstrated on television, published in the press, and appear on the pages of online publications almost every day?’ And here is the beginning of the ‘Response’: ‘Recently, unverified information has been quite frequently disseminated in the media regarding the activities of the State Criminal-Executive Service of Ukraine.’ Does this need a comment?
Regarding the paranoid desire of prison leaders to close themselves off from society, I think an example from my personal practice clearly testifies to this. At the Kharkiv National University, future prison psychologists are being trained at the request of the Department for the Execution of Punishments. The state budget naturally pays for the science. I teach these students the history of the penitentiary system. In Kharkiv, there are two objects — a pre-trial detention centre and Colony No. 18 — which are effectively historical monuments. So, in three years of teaching, I have not been able to conduct a single class with future employees at these institutions. To my question ‘why?’, a profound answer followed: this must be coordinated with Kyiv. Absurd? Of course, absurd! But what openness for human rights activists and journalists can there be if they are afraid to let even their own future colleagues with their lecturer into the prison!
Reasoning about free access to prison institutions is worth little in itself. One can visit a supermarket and walk past display cases of waxed apples, but not look into the back room where ‘fresh’ labels are being glued onto spoiled chickens. It is the same in prison. Demonstrating a church, club, or medical unit to visitors, into which medicine was brought a day before the visit, and a conversation with a couple of fake ‘stoolie-activists’ — that is the basis for ticking the ‘box’: the prison is open.
‘Penitentiaries’ still have a lot to learn and must spend a long time learning how to fantasise on the topic of manipulating statistical data so that the reference to them does not look like a failed joke. Here is a quote from the ‘Response’: ‘In particular, throughout 2007, almost 2 thousand materials on issues of the activities of the State Criminal-Executive Service of Ukraine were covered in the central (emphasis by the author of the ‘Response’) mass media.’ Let’s count: in Ukraine, one can seriously consider five television channels and a dozen actually read newspapers and magazines as central media. Electronic media do not count; they are not central, they are global, and radio is listened to purposefully by perhaps only the drivers of marshrutkas. Now we divide 2000 by 365 (the number of days in a year). It turns out to be five and a half. That is, following departmental statistics, 5-6 materials about prison were placed daily in a dozen and a half media outlets. Daily! This is not even funny; the lie should still be more plausible. This reminds me of A. V. Suvorov’s statement: ‘Write that more Turks were killed; why pity them, the fiends.’
The Department expressed a reproach to human rights activists that they ignored (read: were scared of) the round table on 24 June 2008, where the Concept of the Comprehensive Target Programme for Reforming the State Criminal-Executive Service of Ukraine for 2008-2017 was discussed. ‘The Department officially expressed its readiness for cooperation with all interested parties. However, the Department did not receive a single presentation of their vision or a single alternative to the specified Concept from the human rights activists.’ A serious reproach. It would seem.
We read another document. ‘21 June 2008. Information message on the holding of a public civil discussion of the draft Concept... Proposals and reviews on the drafts of the Concept... are desirable to be submitted to the email address... until 23 June 2008.’ Great! On the evening of 21 June, they invited everyone to cooperate, while limiting the expression of opinions to one day. And they posted the invitation on a website that no one, except, perhaps, me, is interested in — it is just too boring and deceitful, and which Department employees, by analogy with its newspaper, call the ‘Internet-bitch’.*
One is struck (and irritated) by the dull-witted dogmatism with which the ‘Response’ declares: ‘By the way, in no country in the world are correctional institutions open for free visitation by unauthorised persons, which includes representatives of the public and the mass media.’ Really, not in one? Where does such global enlightenment come from? I would advise the heads of the Department to watch popular science films about American prisons on the ‘Discovery’ channel; they are sometimes repeated. Watch, it will be useful...
And in this regard, one more significant observation. The Department’s leaders claim that a prison cannot feed itself. I, by the way, declare the opposite: a prison earns enough to fully provide for itself; it’s just that everything earned is stolen by its leaders and their ‘protectors’ (by the way, despite the fact that such statements directly encroach upon the honour, dignity, and business reputation of prison leaders, and have been repeatedly expressed by me publicly, including in the media, the ‘penitentiaries’ have never once attempted to defend these moral qualities of theirs in court. Is that not strange?).
But let us still assume that a prison really cannot feed itself. Then at whose expense does it exist? Exclusively at the expense of society. But in this case, society, which supports the prison, has the full right to control its activities through its public organisations and the media. Furthermore. Criminals, by their actions, caused harm first and foremost to society, and, all the more, society should control the process of executing the sentences of these criminals. So who is the outsider in the prison?
The only statement in the ‘Response’ with which one can unconditionally agree is: ‘As for the procedure for visiting institutions for the execution of punishments, it is clearly defined by Article 24 of the Law of Ukraine “On the State Criminal-Executive Service of Ukraine”.’ Alas, that is so. This law was indeed written, adopted, and signed by mediocre and incompetent people, and the essence of its Article 24 is defined by two words: ‘Don’t let them in.’
P.S. So that the heads of the Department and some of their fawning subordinates do not have pathological illusions regarding my motivation when writing this article, I explain: I am not a former prison guard who ‘turned’ into a human rights activist, as it might seem at first glance. Human rights activists are intelligent people who are unlikely to have harmed even a fly in their lives. But I am a real prison guard. I worked for many years in a system that caused a lot of pain and suffering to convicts. At the same time, I have absolutely no complex about my harsh and cruel past, and I do not repent of it in the slightest. And, therefore, I will never become a human rights activist.
But I am united with human rights activists by one important quality. I love the truth.
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[1] I put the word ‘penitentiaries’ in quotation marks for a reason. That was the name for special prisons in some American states in the 18th century. But now this word is used by the State Department as a self-designation for prison guards. Well, sort of like if employees of a planetarium started calling themselves planetariums too. Sounds good, right?.. But, as they say, there is no accounting for taste; someone, perhaps, would like to call themselves genitalia tomorrow.