Production activities in Lviv colonies

As reported by the Department for the Execution of Sentences in the Lviv region, in accordance with the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine, the primary means of correcting convicts is socially useful labour in correctional colonies, which allows convicts to obtain professional trades with a state-recognised diploma, compensate for the cost of their maintenance in places of deprivation of liberty, and compensate citizens for damages caused by committed crimes.

In the Lviv region, there are seven state enterprises attached to correctional colonies, which produce the following goods:
- for the needs of healthcare institutions (beds, bedside tables, tables, wardrobes, bookcases, and shelving units);
- for the needs of educational institutions (sets of student desks for various age groups, computer desks, single- and double-pedestal tables, wardrobes, bookcases, and shelving units, metal window grilles for computer labs, beds, bedside tables);
- for the needs of housing and communal service enterprises (waste containers of various modifications, forged benches and lamps for recreation areas, snow shovels, dustpans, brooms, ice axes, sewing mittens);
- for the needs of coal mining enterprises in the region (rollers, washers, assorted bolts, metal spikes, fastening sets);
- for the needs of construction organisations (stone paving of various standard sizes, decorative paving tiles, kerbs, borders, foundation blocks, floor slabs, sawdust and cinder blocks, window and door blocks, decorative forged items);
- for the needs of the defence, transport, and communications industries – there is the possibility of manufacturing units and parts under cooperation agreements.

For the needs of farms and agricultural enterprises, there is a wide range of products, namely: harrows, ploughs, soil cultivators, hoes, mattocks, ploughshares, beet sowers, beet cutters, feed steamers, grain crushers, chains, etc.
One of the problems for correctional colonies in the Lviv region is that citizens very often perceive places of deprivation of liberty as some dark side of public life. This opinion is often formed by feature films and books.
It is a paradox! Correctional colony enterprises are STATE ENTERPRISES, which, in the territory of Galicia, possess a powerful production complex with over 1,000 units of technological equipment and large production areas, and must be in a daily search for new orders to provide employment for convicts.

Another problem is that state enterprises in correctional colonies are not very mobile in terms of responding to changes in market conditions and customer needs.

This is due to a number of objective reasons, namely:
- an outdated fleet of technological equipment;
- the workers at the enterprises are convicts who need to be trained to work and meet production quotas;
- objective societal stereotypes towards products manufactured by the hands of convicts;
- a lack of guaranteed state orders for the production of commercial goods and debts regarding tax payments and consumed energy resources.

Such a financial state is due to the fact that the needs of the criminal-executive system are funded at a level of 50 percent of the requirement, and the underfunded need for funds for the purchase of essential goods and food for convicts is taken from production. Thus, over the last 6 years, over 13 million UAH has been withdrawn from production.

In the vast majority of cases, the orders received by the correctional colony enterprises are one-off; there is currently no constant serial production, with the exception of products for mines in the region and furniture items.

As stated by the Department for the Execution of Sentences in the Lviv region, the global financial crisis has not yet affected the enterprises attached to correctional colonies in the Lviv region.

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