‘Sentence’ to the penitentiary service of Ukraine

Throughout all 20 years of Ukraine’s independence, human rights defenders have constantly raised the problem of the conditions of detention for prisoners and convicts. About 10 years ago, this problem already began to pose a danger on a national scale: the curve of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS epidemics is menacingly creeping up and up in Ukraine. And the main replenishment of the ranks of those suffering from these diseases consists of individuals who have emerged from places of detention.

The state of conditions of detention for convicts has repeatedly been a subject of consideration both in European human rights circles and by relevant EU institutions, and the government of Ukraine has been invited many times to begin reform in the sphere of the Ukrainian penitentiary system. Through the efforts of human rights defenders and a group of people’s deputies, a State Targeted Programme for Improving Conditions of Detention for Convicts and Persons Held in Custody was adopted in 2006.

The State Programme for Improving Conditions of Detention for Convicts and Persons Held in Custody for 2006-2010 in our country was created and introduced with a noble humanitarian goal, taking into account Ukraine’s aspirations for a democratic life in the European community.

However, an audit of the effectiveness of the use of budget funds allocated for the implementation of the programme, conducted by the Accounting Chamber, showed that the 130 million UAH directed towards programme activities over the last five years were used inefficiently, and the programme itself was a failure. None of its activities have been implemented, and the partial fulfillment of some of them by the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine (former heads of the State Department for the Execution of Sentences, V.V. Koshchynets and A.I. Halynskyi) did not contribute to improving conditions in the institutions of the penal system. At the same time, the level of corruption in penal institutions has risen to an unattainable height.

The situation with the observance of prisoners’ rights has not only failed to change for the better but has also significantly worsened. The number of convicts and detained persons is growing annually—at the end of December 2010, there were 154,000 people in prisons and remand centres. Mortality among prisoners is also growing, which in no way corresponds to the principles of improving their conditions of detention declared by the leadership of the State Penitentiary Service.

In 2010, 808 people died in remand centres and penal institutions, which is 44 more than in 2009.

In 80 out of 151 institutions of the penitentiary system, living space standards do not comply with the requirements of the Criminal Executive Code of Ukraine. Such a standard also remains unacceptably low for remand centres. Citizens taken into custody are forced to sleep in shifts(!) and stay in improper conditions that degrade human dignity.

Overcrowding in cells, unsanitary conditions, the lack of proper medical examinations, fresh air, high-quality drinking water, and poor nutrition—all this leads to frequent illnesses among convicts and persons taken into custody. As a result, during 2010, more than 86,000 illnesses were registered among such citizens; that is, every second person is ill. Meanwhile, facts of food theft in individual penal institutions have become more frequent. As an example, the high-profile ‘meat case’, where meat intended for prisoners and convicts in penal institutions in one of the institutions in the Odesa region was being stolen and resold by its leaders, and the proceeds went into their pockets.

The Board of the Accounting Chamber noted that the rights of convicts to work are also being violated. The adoption of programmes at the regional level for creating new jobs for convicts has not yielded positive results. Today, only about 40 percent of able-bodied convicts are engaged in useful work. The absolute majority of people deprived of their liberty do not have a kopeck in their personal accounts, whereas almost 40,000 of them have writs of execution totalling about 0.5 billion hryvnias.

In general, the state of affairs in the penitentiary system of Ukraine remains complex and problematic, and its activities do not meet modern requirements for the observance of human rights and freedoms. Creating humane conditions for the stay of prisoners in places of deprivation of liberty should become an urgent state task for the new leadership of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine.

According to the auditors’ conclusions, the penitentiary system of Ukraine needs urgent modernisation and development. There has long been an urgent necessity to use the experience of European states in our country through the introduction of a national model of a probation system (establishing restrictions on the freedom of movement of convicts and monitoring their behaviour), as well as introducing corresponding changes to legislation for the further humanisation of serving sentences in places of deprivation of liberty.

Only a change in the very essence of correctional legislation will lead to radical changes in the activities of the State Penitentiary Service and will reorient it from the problematic search for funds for building new prisons to the reconstruction and technical re-equipping of existing ones. This would allow not only ‘unloading’ the penal institutions but also bringing the conditions of detention for convicts and persons held in custody into compliance with European standards, reducing the financial burden on the state budget, and increasing the efficiency of using funds for the maintenance of places of deprivation of liberty and remand centres.

‘Six attempts to reform the penitentiary system have yielded nothing,’ noted the Chairman of the Accounting Chamber, V.K. Symonenko, at the Board meeting. ‘The reason lies in the imperfection of approaches to solving the problem and the organisation of the implementation of a number of state programmes. For all 5 years, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the State Department for the Execution of Sentences participated in a process called ‘chaos’. Therefore, shameful problems spill over through barbed fences onto the whole of society, undermining not only the health of thousands of prisoners and the economy of a specific sphere, but also the image of the state worldwide regarding the observance and provision of human rights.’