Our women’s prisons are like in the Middle Ages

Sergey Zychkov, Deputy Head of Colony-Settlement No. 4 in the Amur Region, has been charged with beating female prisoners. This is how the continuation of the scandalous story with a video clip that literally blew up the internet about a week ago turned out. In it, Zychkov, confident in his impunity, kicks and punches defenceless ‘female prisoners’ for no reason and drags them by their hair. That is, he is restoring order in the subordinate institution.

The colony, disgraced across the entire country, is located in the village of Priozernoye, Ivanov District, Amur Region. A commission of the suddenly ‘enlightened’ Federal Penitentiary Service immediately flew there. Zychkov was immediately taken into custody. It seems that justice (thanks to an anonymous colony worker who made the recordings public) has triumphed. But we all understand that this is, unfortunately, not the case. Zychkov will no longer torment female prisoners, but what about the others? Those who are still in their jobs and positions? And how is the reform of women’s correctional institutions, announced as far back as 2000, actually going? Much was expected from it. First of all, a softening of the detention regime, improvements in living conditions, and improvements in the conditions of detention in colonies for juvenile female offenders and women with children.


Let us head to one of the traditional women’s ‘zones’. There are many of them all over Russia. But there are especially many in places with harsh climates — Mordovia, Chuvashia… So, YUL 34/7 in the town of Tsivilsk, Chuvashia. It was created as a ‘legal infirmary’ where female drug addicts were supposed to be sent.


The nature here is magnificent. In winter — fir trees and blue snow, in summer — a sea of flowers and sunshine. Here there is cleanliness and order. No one uses drugs and the majority work.


Here everything is normal — it is a model institution. A black uniform made of thick fabric in any weather. Washed once a month. All your property fits into half a bedside table and one or two boxes.

Being drug addicts, the prisoners did not care about their appearance and rarely about their health when they were free. Now they are trying to catch up, although it is a pitiful sight: almost everyone looks older than their years, an unhealthy, earthy complexion, teeth are practically absent...


For the educators, their charges are not people: chairs, little numbers, some kind of useless objects. Here they do not actually treat, but punish. Most of these so-called educators speak poor Russian and do not know how to solve percentage problems… They came here to work because there was nowhere else. Because in the town of Tsivilsk, the zone is a city-forming enterprise. They usually start their professional career in the position of ‘controller’ or ‘supervisory staff’. Girls as young as eighteen come to this job.

In the Tsivilsk colony, there are several two-storey barracks. Women live in so-called sections (rooms) of about 50 people each. For 200 people — attention! — there are 6-8 toilets, about 10 washbasins, and two electrical sockets where one can connect a device for preparing food; more often this is an immersion heater or a small kettle, and an iron. There is no hot water. A woman is allowed two litres of boiling water per day from a ‘titan’ heater — one in the morning, one in the evening, to wash herself. The ‘bathhouse’ is here once a week. In the bath area, there are 4 taps, they go in to wash in shifts, i.e., 50 people at a time. No more than an hour is given for ‘washing’ and laundry — after all, everyone must wash and do laundry over the two weekend days, and that is about 1,000 people.


In correctional institutions, more than in other places, everything depends on human relationships. Therefore, simply increasing the number of toilets and washbasins per ‘soul’ is unlikely to lead to anything. For example, in Shakhovo, Oryol Region, living conditions are not much different from other similar institutions; however, convicted women strive to get there. The former strict-regime colony has retained both the local system and a working day of at least 10-12 hours. However, women are attracted by the administration’s attitude towards the ‘special contingent’. The pay for work here is higher than in other zones, even if not by much; working women are respected, they try not to create problems with hygiene products, or with issues such as the possibility of washing an extra time. Lyudmila Alpern, Deputy Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Reform, often visits this institution:


— When we started our activities, I visited three women’s colonies — in Mordovia (ZhKh 385/2), in the Vladimir Region (OD 1/1), and in Shakhovo, Oryol Region (YaI – 22/1). Then, in the early 2000s, living conditions everywhere were horrifying. In Mordovia, the toilet was outside. And now, in 2011, our prisons, our correctional institutions are literally in the Middle Ages. Visiting the institutions, we encountered the fact that the administration listens little to the words of human rights activists. The women who told us about their lives in the colony and about existing problems were punished after we left. The only zone where our advice and suggestions found some response was in Shakhovo. Now we have a new project there — we are training staff and convicts in mediation. It is a technology for resolving conflict situations. As a result, 4-5 psychologists have started working in the zone on a permanent basis, and the number of penalties, reprimands, and placements in the disciplinary isolation cell has decreased.


But let us return to Tsivilsk


Wake-up is at 5.45, lights out at 22.00. The majority of convicts work in the sewing production unit. They sew police uniforms for all seasons, workwear, and uniforms for state structures, including custom tailoring. The women work on average for 10 hours a day, practically without days off. For those who do not cope with the work, there are ‘work orders’ — overtime work. In this way, a woman can work up to 20 hours a day. Well, there is also so-called household work — this is unpaid work on maintaining the territory, premises, and production. For example, when there is construction going on in the zone, women haul cinder blocks and bricks; if a truck with fabric arrives, they unload it, etc.


The worst thing in the ‘zone’ is to get sick. Good doctors do not stay in the institution because it is impossible to work in such conditions — the most necessary items are lacking. If a woman is so ill that she is not in a condition to walk three times a day to the medical unit for pills (this is in another barrack), if she needs bed rest, she is placed in a small infirmary. In the infirmary, there are several wards, about 10 people in each. The doors of the wards are locked with a padlock from the outside. In the ward, the prisoners both use a pot (excuse me) and eat. They are only let out in the morning and in the evening so that they can wash and take out the rubbish accumulated during the day. No radio, no television, or even books are ‘entitled’ to those lying in the infirmary. There is simply no radio or television, and a librarian will not come to you.


For drug-addicted patients in the Tsivilsk infirmary, there are especially many staff narcologists. In 2005, there were 7 of them there. At one point, I got my hands on a report from one of them about the work performed. It was written there that the main method of treating drug addiction used in this zone is occupational therapy; from medication, they provide a weak antidepressant — Amitriptyline. It is difficult to judge the number of ‘cured’ individuals. The administration calls a figure of 35%. But, judging by everything, the percentage is highly inflated. Many of those who are released commit repeat crimes related to the use or sale of narcotic substances within the next year. This, unfortunately, also applies to those released on parole.


Drugs do not get onto the territory of the colony; this is facilitated by the so-called ‘local’ system — the entire zone is divided into lockable sections-courtyards. Logically, after the criminal executive legislation defined only two types of regime for serving a sentence for women — the general regime and the colony-settlement, local sections should have been abolished. But in practice, this is not the case. In her free time, a woman can only go out into the small courtyard in front of her barrack. In order to go to the library, medical unit, etc., one needs to get permission from the duty station. Going to visit another barrack is possible only on a rare day off and, again, with permission.


But this ‘forced abstinence’ frees one only from physical drug dependence. And what about psychological dependence? There is one staff psychologist in the institution. Most often, they do not stay in this position for long, they try to communicate with the convicts as little as possible — the girls who have just graduated from some psychology faculty at a local institute are simply afraid of them.


In the Tsivilsk correctional institution, there is a special detachment for HIV-positive individuals. There are more than a hundred people in it. There are about as many patients with closed-form tuberculosis, and practically everyone has Hepatitis B or C. These people receive no treatment whatsoever.


HIV-positive individuals are released on parole in almost 100% of cases — this is the only piece of compassion afforded to the wayward women. Others are released on parole as luck would have it. And it does not depend at all on whether you have ‘realised’ your error and ‘reformed’. Some women who maintain connections with relatives try to be released earlier by providing ‘humanitarian’ aid to the zone. Like, they will buy a television for the head of the detachment, do repairs in her office… For this, they are given letters of commendation and a positive character reference is prepared. But it often happens that they do not want to let go of a ‘cash cow’ — at the parole hearing, the letters of commendation turn out to be ‘lost’, and the long-awaited freedom is postponed for an indefinite period.


Those who truly have not long left to live are the only ones released on health grounds. And that is only because a corpse in the institution is an ‘extraordinary incident’. In a neighbouring ‘zone’ in the village of Alatyr, a woman was not certified for release even after an operation to remove a malignant tumour, although she had about half a year left until the end of her term. The local doctors were afraid to dress her wound, as the wound looked so unsightly and unhealthy, but — they did not certify her.


And what do the convicts eat? Is it realistic not to get sick with such nutrition? In Tsivilsk, the food depends entirely on the success of the sewing production. Not many orders — you will be slurping empty gruel twice a day. Many orders — then porridge awaits you for breakfast, porridge with soy, soup with lard and potatoes for lunch, and fish with sour stewed cabbage for dinner. Well, also tea and underbaked black bread. The women eat from dented aluminium bowls, and the sick and HIV-positive are not provided with separate utensils.


The nutrition is slightly better in correctional institutions where women are held together with their young children. This includes the already mentioned Mordovian ZhKh 385/2, the Vladimir OD 1/1, and the Mozhaisk IK-5. Here, there are dairy products, eggs, and white bread. But in the ‘Children’s Homes’ (as colonies where women are held with children are called), other, more terrifying problems arise. The children of convicts effectively live apart from their mothers, in a Children’s Home. A mother can only be with her child during feeding times plus another 2 hours a day. Visits with the child turn into yet another tool of punishment and suppression: they can always be banned under a far-fetched pretext (‘the child is sick’, ‘there is a quarantine in the Children’s Home’, etc.) if the mother is ‘behaving badly’. And again, returning to human relations, according to Lyudmila Alpern, in the Mordovian colony, where the toilet is outside, the head doctor of the Children’s Home understood that a mother needs to spend as much time as possible with her little one and, despite the general domestic disorganisation, found some opportunities: for example, the first units for the joint stay of mother and child appeared in this colony.


Convicts work as nannies and educators in the children’s homes. When selecting for such a job, they are not guided by education, personal qualities, or the nature of the crime committed, but by ‘operational considerations’. ‘Correct convicts’ are placed as nannies and educators, who either work for the zone’s operative officer or can pay for a warm spot with something.


The son of Olga, who was sentenced to 6 years and was released from the Mozhaisk correctional colony in 2011, spent only a few months in the Children’s Home. Having learned what was really happening there, the father decided to take the boy. Visits with the mother turned into true torture for the little human being. He would wait for them all day, eat poorly, not play, not do anything, just sit in the corner. When his mother arrived, he would cling to her with a death grip, so that he could only be pried off with difficulty. At home, the child was initially afraid of everything, would wake up in the middle of the night screaming, then, until he was 5 years old, would literally not let his father go a single step. And if there is an excuse for bad treatment of prisoners — ‘they committed a crime’ — then what excuse will you find in this case? What is a newborn baby guilty of?


On her ‘salary’, a model seamstress in Tsivilsk can still buy a few sweets, a pack of cigarettes, soap, and a little tea in the ‘prison shop’ — that is, perhaps, all. And yes, salaries here are still like in the Soviet Union — 70-80 roubles. Formally, ‘on paper’, they are, of course, higher. But, as Lyudmila Alpern says, the zone’s production reminds one more of production in the feudal era. And it will not be able to function differently, because it would turn out to be unprofitable.


Is physical abuse practised? Yes, it is practised. An operative officer or the head of a detachment usually points out to the foremen those who need to be ‘pressed’. As a rule, they beat those who do not meet production quotas and those who steal from their fellow prisoners because they are not getting enough to eat in the canteen; however, the latter happens rarely. They beat them on the stairs between floors, in the operative officer’s office, or in the storeroom. And this is considered the norm. Also, as a punishment, standing in the corridor is practised. If someone from the brigade has not fulfilled their production quota, the entire brigade can be made to stand after work, and the women stand like that for four hours, until lights out.


If a commission arrives at the zone, then those who are not at production, but ‘at home’, in the barracks, stand in formation all day. After all, the ‘boss’ could arrive at any moment. At the same time, the women are forbidden from using the toilet and cooking food, so that ‘it doesn’t stink’.