Amnestied prisoners in no hurry to move

Almost a thousand prisoners have turned down their right to early release. According to information from the State Department for the Execution of Sentences (the Department), there are two thousand eight hundred prisoners who are entitled to an amnesty, however most often people simply have nowhere to go after their release. A good few plan to use their right to early release later, since you can only be amnestied once in your lifetime. In any case the final verdict on whether or not to allow a person to remain in prison is with the court.

Vasyl Koshchynets, Head of the Department: “They’re quite direct about it  and say that they’ve got nowhere to go. The biggest motivation is when a small period is remaining of the sentence – say two or three years. Or they calculate that next time it could come in handy.”