Penitentiary Reform Ended Before It Really Began

One of the steps taken by the previous government, even before the ‘suspension’ of its intentions regarding Ukraine’s European integration processes, was the adoption of the State Targeted Programme for the Reform of the State Criminal-Executive Service for 2013–2017 (the Programme). Reforming the penitentiary sector was one of the requirements for signing the Association Agreement with the European Union; specifically, this was enshrined in the EU–Ukraine Association Agenda.
Such a requirement is not surprising, as year after year, international institutions—such as the European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture—point to egregious problems regarding the state of sentence execution and detention in penitentiary institutions. Likewise, its priority should not be surprising, as one of the EU’s core values is human rights, and it makes no difference whether these are the rights of prisoners or free citizens. Moreover, the human rights situation for individuals in places of deprivation of liberty is arguably the most neglected in our country.
One of the main developers of this important document was the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine. This was evident from the priorities for the allocation of funds across various areas of the reform of the State Criminal-Executive Service, in which a commitment to primary tasks from the perspective of human rights could not be traced.
In accordance with the Passport of this Programme, 6,011.73 million hryvnias, or a little over 6 billion hryvnias, was to be spent on its implementation, which amounted to approximately 1.6 per cent of the planned State Budget revenues for 2013.
Approximately one-third of these funds was to be spent on the design and construction of facilities to relocate pre-trial detention centres and correctional colonies outside the central areas of Lviv, Odesa, and Kherson (2,051.7 million hryvnias). Although the task to which this measure belonged was titled in the Programme as ‘Improving conditions of detention for convicts, ensuring the transition from holding them in barracks-type dormitories to block (cell) accommodation with an increase in the living space standard per convict through technical re-equipment and reconstruction of penal institutions, construction of new and reconstruction of existing pre-trial detention centres’, its total financing was supposed to be 2,802.07 million hryvnias, including the aforementioned 2,051.7 million hryvnias. At a time when the problem of overcrowding in pre-trial detention centres and colonies had recently been taking a back seat, these funds primarily could and should have been directed towards introducing the block-based detention system so desired by the domestic criminal-executive service.
The volume of funds planned for the task of ‘modernisation of engineering and technical means of security and supervision, introduction of modern technologies with the goal of creating a multi-level system of centralised security and video monitoring, and automated information and telecommunication systems for the SPtS’ amounted to 1,107.01 million hryvnias, whereas only 123.96 million hryvnias were to be allocated for ‘Improving the organisation of nutrition for convicts and persons held in custody, the system for purchasing food and essential items, and providing them with communal-household equipment’, and 400.52 million hryvnias for the modernisation of engineering infrastructure facilities (such important areas as heating, water supply, sewage, etc.). A mere 0.64 million hryvnias was allocated for increasing the effectiveness of sentence execution not involving deprivation of liberty (including the creation of a probation service).
The picture became even sadder when considering the sum of funds allocated to the healthcare system for convicts and persons held in custody, and for improving the quality of medical assistance—issues that were a subject of serious concern for Council of Europe institutions and which also related to the priority tasks for fulfilling the EU–Ukraine Association Agenda. Specifically, this sum amounted to 179.57 million hryvnias, which is only approximately 1/33 of the total volume of funds for the Programme’s implementation, and only 1/4 of the amount that was to be spent on the modernisation of penal institution enterprises.
The distribution of funds for the modernisation of penal institution enterprises and the improvement of the professional training system for convicts sentenced to restriction or deprivation of liberty—730.48 million hryvnias (of which only 18.93 million hryvnias was provided for improving the professional training system)—was also telling. It once again confirmed the prison department’s commitment to ‘economic priorities’ in the activities of controlled enterprises and to profits from the use of convict labour, rather than, for instance, teaching skills useful for the reintegration of convicts into society. This was also evidenced by the amendments to the Law of Ukraine ‘On the State Criminal-Executive Service’, which took place at the very end of 2012, whereby penal institution enterprises were transformed from ‘enterprises carrying out non-commercial economic activity without the goal of profit for the provision of vocational training to convicts and involving them in labour…’ (Part 1, Article 13 of the Law) into ‘enterprises carrying out economic activity and vocational training for convicts.’ The orientation of such changes is obvious, and it contradicts Rule 8 of the European Prison Rules, which provides that ‘while the acquisition of financial profit from the activities of enterprises in correctional institutions may be useful from the point of view of increasing standards, as well as the quality and expediency of professional training, the interests of prisoners must not be subordinated to this goal.’
Furthermore, domestic scholars have expressed other critical ideas. According to the aforementioned Passport, it was planned to attract funds for the implementation of the Programme not only from the state budget but also from other ‘sources not prohibited by law’, namely 2,129.7 million hryvnias, i.e., more than 1/3 of the funding for the Programme. However, taking into account that, most likely, these were to be funds from so-called investors who were supposed to invest them in the production of penal institutions, one could fairly guess that to ‘work off’ these funds, it was planned to use convicts as massively as possible and with minimal wages at the modernised enterprises.
All this criticism indicates that the Programme should have been changed with a redistribution of funds taking into account human rights priorities, rather than the personal interests of penitentiary officials. However, it was recently simply terminated in one fell swoop. By Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 71 of 5 March 2014, ‘Some issues regarding the optimisation of state target programmes and national projects, the saving of budget funds, and the recognition of certain acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine as expired’, its implementation was prematurely terminated.
Such a step by the current government confirms its distance from the priority task of ensuring the observance of human rights. This is especially confirmed by the fact that the very first austerity steps affected one of the most dilapidated segments of Ukraine’s law enforcement system.
We note that international structures have repeatedly emphasised that the failure to ensure human rights in penal institutions cannot be justified by a lack of funds. The idea is that if the state decides to isolate a person from society, it must take responsibility for them and for the observance of their rights.
Well, if the government has already decided to save money on the penitentiary sphere, let us remind it of the saying: ‘what you found is what you lost.’ If there is no desire to improve the situation regarding, for example, material-household conditions of detention and medical provision, the state budget will have to pay for violations of human rights established by the European Court. But the sums that will have to be paid are minuscule compared to the other price of this austerity—a reduction in the speed of European integration progress. One way or another, sooner or later, the prison system will still have to be reformed, as this law enforcement link is traditionally under the special attention of European bodies. By not putting it in order, and by economising on it, we once again confirm pro-Soviet thinking, as well as the fact that the punitive ideas of the Russian Federation are much closer to us than European ones.
Perhaps the country’s leadership wishes to change the truthful British proverb that prison is an expensive way to make bad people worse, and has decided to make this way cheap. If so, then let them at least not forget about another, much more acceptable path to austerity—reducing criminal repression through amendments to legislation in the criminal-legal sphere regarding the broad application of alternative sanctions not involving deprivation of liberty, a substantial reduction of sanction terms provided for by the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and the improvement of the parole mechanism. A huge number of reforms can be carried out without any costs; however, the political will to resort to them is not observed.