The situation in Crimean prisons remains difficult

On 17 June in the House of the government a conference of the Coordinating Committee for fight with corruption and organized crime was held, chaired by the Prime-Minister of the Crimea Sergey Kunitsyn. Among the questions discussed at the conference one should point out the problem of the survival of the Crimean penitentiaries. As Vasiliy Loban, the deputy head of the penitentiary system of Ukraine, said, the situation in the Crimean penitentiary establishments remains very complicated. By the state on 1 April there are more than five thousand inmates, in particular, about three thousand in the preliminary prison in Simferopol, which exceeds the capacity in 1.5. 2 times. Because of the insufficient financing, the critical situation arose with purchasing and transportation of food products, medication, and communal services. Every fifth incarcerated is ill with TB of different forms, among them more than one hundred people are ill in the open form. There are 43 people who are AIDS-infected. The mortality among the incarcerated grows steadily. There is a grave necessity to continue the construction of the preliminary prison in Kerch, which was suspended in 1996 because of the lack of finances. Sergey Kunitsyn suggested to assess the work of the administration of preliminary prison in Simferopol as inadequate, since they could solve many questions themselves, without the interference of the coordinating committee