Cultivating respect for the law

On 25 November 2009, training sessions were conducted with minors held in the Chernihiv SIZO.
In pre-trial detention centres, the most vulnerable category of prisoners is minors, both in terms of legal self-defence and in terms of knowledge of their rights and obligations while held in this institution. A lack of knowledge of their rights and duties, and poor knowledge of the internal regulations of these institutions, often leads to conflict situations.
Unfortunately, anti-social standards of behaviour and the ‘values’ of the criminal subculture have become widespread in the adolescent environment. A common trait of minors who have committed crimes is extreme aggression. Most of them grew up and were raised in incomplete or dysfunctional families. They were introduced to alcohol and drugs at an early age.
Taking into account the biological, psychological, and social characteristics of minors, the law on criminal liability provides them with enhanced criminal-legal protection; it also provides for specific features regarding holding them accountable, releasing them from liability, sentencing, and release from punishment and serving it. This position of the state is based on international legal acts, in particular the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the Preamble to which states that minors require special care and protection, including appropriate legal protection.
Members of the charitable organisation ‘Chernihiv Women’s Human Rights Centre’ see their task not only as providing minors with certain legal knowledge and an understanding of the law, but also consider it necessary to promote the formation of a readiness for law-abiding behaviour in society, based on a respectful attitude towards the law.

On 25 November 2009, representatives of the charitable organisation ‘Chernihiv Women’s Human Rights Centre’, together with the Main Department of Justice in the Chernihiv region and the Chernihiv City Centre for Social Services for Family, Children and Youth, prepared and conducted training sessions with various categories of minors held in the Chernihiv pre-trial detention centre:

- with those whose sentences have entered into legal force, on the topic ‘Know your rights and be able to defend them’, during which the convicts were introduced to the specific features of serving a sentence in educational colonies, the application of parole, and remaining in educational colonies after reaching the age of 18. Lilia Lozova and Oleh Berezenets, representatives of the Chernihiv Youth Culture Centre, spoke to the minors; they themselves, while minors, had problems with the law but returned to generally accepted socially normative life. The interaction ended with a small concert for the convicts.

- and with minors whose criminal cases are being investigated and are under consideration in judicial bodies – regarding the rights and guarantees of persons taken into custody. They were familiarised with the obligations of prisoners provided for by current legislation and the legal consequences of non-compliance with the rules of conduct.

Representatives of the charitable organisation donated chess, draughts, backgammon, and dominoes to the minors held in the Chernihiv pre-trial detention centre.

V. Badyra, Director of the charitable organisation ‘Chernihiv Women’s Human Rights Centre’