THE TROUBLED TIMES
Sebastopol was twice taken by the enemy, first time in the Crimean war of 1854-55 by English and French, second time – in the WW2 by Germans. But each time it defended heroically, so the city is called ‘the city of glory’ by the official propaganda. In the former Soviet Union it was a navy base closed from the public, well-provided, well-lit, well-cleaned
and with the most picturesque parks.
The glorious city in depression
Roman Romanov, Sebastopol
It is all quiet in Sebastopol. The times passed when even minor events occurring in Sebastopol made headlines in all newspapers. The Black Sea Navy of the former USSR is divided between Russia and Ukraine. Now the seamen of the both Navies are homesick for the former years of joint service and discuss the question whose pay arrears are longer.
The last election to the local administration was won by communists. Now they take decisions, for example, such as not to admit American Marines to joint maneuvers.
Each evening the city is dark: energetic crisis. Gas is provided at unpredictable time.. People with good memory recall that many years ago hot water dripped from the faucets. People anticipate the coming winter with awe. They understand that there would not be central heating: there is no money to pay for heat. Only six motor ambulances cruise about the city, but people who will not be taken by motor ambulances can get a medical consultation over telephone. Now and then pickets of physicians or teachers demanding their salaries appear in front of the building of the city administration. Pedestrians have long ago got accustomed to pickets and do not pay attention.
Maybe in about two years there would be a splash of emotions, since one of the most probable pretenders to the Russian presidential post, Yuri Luzhkov, promised to gain the Russian jurisdiction over the city. There will be a lot of hue and cry, and then it will become quiet again, as if dead.
The right for life is badly guaranteed
Since the beginning of the current year 3708 murders were committed in Ukraine, 492 from them are not uncovered yet. Donetsk and Odessa regions lead in this respect. 46 murders out of them were committed on order, 26 for cash, the rest are the gang wars casualties.
Orphaned children increase in number
In 1996 the number of children in orphanages of Donetsk region equaled 10.2 thousand, in 1997 the number grew by one thousand. For nine months of 1998 the number still increased by 666. It appeared that 245 out of them never went to school, 312 finished only four grades. Not all of them are orphans: 240 children ran from their families because of starvation and intrafamily scandals, 38 left the families because of conflicts at school. 261 children have been returned to their families.
The life in orphanages is hard, many problems arise from the shortage of financing. Financial inspection after checking ten orphanages found that in four of them money and food were stolen by the personnel. For example, in Enakievo 10069 grivnas were embezzled. The personnel stole bed clothing, furniture, crockery and even a refrigerator.
More labor traumas
The profound economic crisis and the general indifference to human lives are reflected not only in the crime statistics. Protection of labor stopped to function in fact. This year 74 workers perished in metallurgy, 92 – in building industry. In transport 109 people were killed, in mining – 333. But the sad record belongs to agriculture: 447 people gave their lives for food. And drink: 30% out of them were drunken when killed.
The last three notes are prepared by A.Bukalov, Donetsk
PRACTICE OF HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION
A seminar on reforming prisons in Donetsk
A.Bukalov, Donetsk
One of the most difficult problems of post-totalitarian countries is the problem of crime. Mass media, the public and the law enforcing agencies focus their attention on detective and operative activities, on capturing and sentencing people, who violated the law. What happens with them later, where they stay during the punishment, how corrected they return to the society, - these and related topics are analyzed and discussed much less. At the same time the situation within the penitentiary system is extremely complicated. Almost 230 thousand are kept behind the bars in Ukraine, many colonies are overcrowded. The upkeep of prisoners demand enormous sums of money, which the state does not possess.
Donetsk region has an especially high concentration of convicts, one seventh of the total Ukrainian stock is kept in Donetsk region. That is why ‘Donetsk Memorial’ jointly with the international organization ‘Penal Reform International’ (Great Britain) decided to have the international seminar ‘The prison reform in post-totalitarian countries’ namely in Donetsk. The seminar was held on 10 - 12 November. The participants were representatives of the penitentiary system and NGOs from Azerbaydjan, Armenia, Belorus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Romania, Tadjikistan, Turkmenia, Yugoslavia. Ukraine was represented by the first vice-director of the Penitentiary Department Aleksandr Ptashinsky, the first vice-chairman of the Committee of human rights of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine Georgiy Popov, researchers from five leading institutes of the country, representatives of NGOs. The seminar was opened by Leonid Kirichenko, the vice-governor of Donetsk region.
The participants of the seminar exchanged the experience of reforming prison systems in their countries, they aired their personal approaches to the purpose of punishment and to problems that are to be resolved by the prison administration. In this relation they stressed the necessity of reforming the operating legislation.
On the second day of the seminar a visit was organized to the strengthened regime colony in the town of Gorlovka.
It is supposed to publish a book on the materials of the seminar.
The seminar was sponsored by Donetsk branch of the international fund ‘Vidrodjennia’, by the British fund ‘Know how’, and by the British embassy in Ukraine.
Conference about teaching human rights
Volodymir Kaplun
On 13-14 November in the building of Kyiv region administration a scientific practical conference ‘Teaching human rights: Ukrainian and Byelorussian experience’ was held. This conference was organized by Ukrainian and Byelorussian sections of the international unions for human rights.
At the conference, which was attended by Ukrainian and Byelorussian specialists, conceptual approaches to teaching human rights in Ukraine and Belorus were considered. The attention was focused on teaching human rights in elementary, secondary and higher schools; the role of mass media in this process was discussed as well.
The conference was greeted by representatives of the Cabinet of Ministers, the President’s administration and the committee of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine on education, as well as by the director of the Center of information and documentation of the Council of Europe in Ukraine.
During the conference the literature was exhibited devoted to teaching human rights.
Liudmila Alekseeva has become the president of IHF!
Evgen Zakharov, Kharkov
Liudmila Alekseeva, the chairperson of Moscow Helsinki Group, was elected the president of International Helsinki Federation at the General Assembly of the Federation held in Vienna from 5 to 8 November. Liudmila Alekseeva has been actively working in human rights protection movement since the 60s, she was one of the founders of Moscow Helsinki Group, worked in Helsinki Watch, many years leads the topical transmissions from radio ‘Liberty’ and ‘The voice of America’. Many read her remarkable book on the history of dissent in the USSR.
We felicitate Liudmila Alekseeva with her election to this high position and we are sure that her activity as a president of IHF will promote the cooperation between human rights protection organizations of post-Soviet and Western countries.
Below we place some information about how human rights protection organizations work Russia:.
Moscow juridical center ‘Zashchita’ (‘Protection’)
Moscow city center ‘Zashchita’ grants free juridical counseling to those who lost their job. This center has been organized by the Committee of labor and employment of the Moscow government and by the Moscow trade union federation. The free counseling is granted to those who lost their job or were sent to the unpaid leave, if the people, who suffered, are in the socially unprotected group of population. We think that children under 18, handicapped people, single parents, breeding minor children, people, who suffer from irradiation or injured by transport accidents and emergencies, belong to these unprotected groups.
Anna Golubkova, the manager of the Center, thinks that if one became a victim of illegal disemployment, pay arrears or nonpayment of unemployment relief, one must not be desperate, one must fight for one’s rights together with professional lawyers. In her interview Anna Golubkova also said: ‘We not only give our clients qualified advice, we also represent their interests in court. Our Center grunts consultations not only in labor relations but also in living accommodation, civil and family rights’.
The center address is: 30 Obruchevaya St., Moscow.
Telephone: 424-04-11.
Center of juridical aid in Nizhniy Novgorod
S.Shimivolos, Nizhniy Novgorod
1. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES
The Center of juridical aid (CJA) has functioned since October 1996. The Center accepts complaints and counsels in all questions of human rights protection.
The higher priority fields:
The principal aspects in the work of CJA are such:
Parallelly the Center works over typical and massive violations of human rights (such as pay arrears), grants assistance to people whose rights are violated and who cannot provide the necessary juridical aid. Thus, the Center grants the aid in most acute and complicated questions in violation of human rights, which are due to the archaic judicial system, illegal decisions and actions of state officials, with absence of needed laws. The Center analyzes and prepares recommendations to the authorities, as well as publications in mass media.
2. ACCEPTANCE OF CITIZENS
Citizens are admitted in work days from 10:00 to 18:00. The acceptance is conducted by permanent workers of the Center, assisted by professionals. During the contact the worker on duty elucidates and registers the personal data of the claimant, the essence of the problem and sketches the way of its solution. The acceptance bureau is downtown, information on the address is made known through newspapers.
Publication in mass media of individual complaints or their reviews is in fact an efficient part of the juridical defense. The materials are operatively published in the newspaper ‘Protection of rights’ issued by the Center. When a case deserves a wider publication, it is prepared for publishing in local radio and TV companies.
From 1 October 1996 to 31 October 1997 the Center received 461 citizens, among them 63 not from Nizhniy Novgorod. Besides, we received 339 complaints in writing by mail.
LAWS AND COURTS
Nikitin’s case: the judge took a revolutionary decision
A subsequent stage in the trial of Aleksandr Nikitin has completed. Aleksandr Nikitin, a worker of the Norwegian nature protecting organization ‘Bellona’, a retired officer of the North Navy, was accused by the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) of Russia in divulging state secrets. Three years ago Nikitin was arrested by the FSB for the alleged passing secret documents on the nuclear waste of the North Navy to Norwegian citizens. On 29 October the judge took an unexpected and revolutionary decision – to pass the case for additional investigation since for the three last years the FSB actually could not gather any evidence of the illegal actions of Nikitin.
Nikitin himself commented the decision saying that the three-year-long investigation by the FSB is rancid nonsense. Nikitin’s advocates consider that it is the FSB which must be persecuted in this case.
Our informant
News about the Strasbourg court (November 1998)
Andrew Dzemczewski, General Secretariat of the Council of Europe, Department of human rights
As a result of the adoption of Protocol 11 signed by all state-members of the Council of Europe and ratified already by 15 state-members (among them Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Great Britain, Hungary, Iceland, Cyprus, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden), a permanently operating European Court will be created. The protocol will become operable in one year after the ratification by all sides.
This document, open for signature since 11 May 1994, is the first concrete result of the solutions taken by heads of the states and governments of state-members of the Council of Europe at the summit in Vienna on 8-9 October 1993.
The control bodies, operating up to the present time, such as the European Commission on human rights and the European Court on human rights will be abolished. A new body will be created in Strasbourg, the new European Court on human rights. It will guarantee the normal way of considering cases and, first of all, the immediate access to the court of all claimants.
The article treats in detail many stages of the consideration of a claim, but since these data can be learned by the Western reader from many sources, we shall skip the details.
Court statistics: access to official information
Boris Zakharov, Kharkov
According to Article 32 of the Ukrainian law ‘On information’, state bodies and state officials have the duty to hand out information that concerns their activities. During 1998 the Kharkov Group for human rights protection together with the colleagues from related NGOs requested information about court statistics. This activity has two purposes: to learn the court statistics and to learn how diligently the corresponding agencies fulfil their duty to inform the public.
We requested the information on the first half of 1998 from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, from the same Ministry of the autonomous republic of the Crimea and from all 25 region directorates of Ukraine. We got answers from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and from 14 region directorates; 11 region directorates did not answer, thus violating Article 10 of the Ukrainian law ‘On information’. Cherkassy region directorate answered nothing but re-addressed us to the Ministry of Justice.
The answers are summarized in Table 1. As the table shows, the obtained answers are incomplete.
But even these incomplete data convincingly testify that the crime level strongly depends on the geographic location of the region. In the regions where the Christian outlook is dominating, where the social and cultural traditions are stronger – there the crime level is lower, in spite of the crisis and social strains. If to take into consideration the calmness and individualism typical for the Ukrainian mentality, then it is not surprising that the crime level in the Central and West Ukraine is much lower than in the South and East industrial regions.
The main factors that determine the crime level are, in my opinion:
Ñëåäóåò ïåðåâîä íàäïèñåé â òàáëèöå íà ñòð. 6. íîìåðà
31:
1 – Regions; 2 – Rovny; 3 – Chernivtsy; 4 – Volyn; 5 – Khmelnitsk; 7 – Zhytomir; 8 – Sumy; 9 – Nikolayev; 10 – Kyiv; 11 – Odessa; 12 – Kharkov; 13 – Dnepropetrovsk; 14 – Donetsk; 15 – Total in Ukraine; 16 – The number of considered cases; 17 – The number of convicted; 18 – Convicted to incarceration; 19 – Quantity of death verdicts; 20 – Quantity of acquitted; 21 – Quantity of penitentiary establishments; 22 – The first number is absolute data, second – relative data (per one million); ‘*’ denotes the absence of the answer.
REFORMS IN UKRAINE
Kyiv railway station is a mirror of Ukrainian reforms in Kuchma’s time
Roman Romanov, Sebastopol
Recently George Soros came to Ukraine. The first channel of news reported on how President of Ukraine met the great financier and Maecenas. With great national pride the announcer repeated George Soros’s words that the financial crisis in Ukraine is not so fatal as in Russia. To tell the truth, it is so because Ukraine continues to get financial aid from the West. Being asked about the reforms in Ukraine, the high American guest answered that they are nor noticeable either in Russia or in Ukraine. Every Ukrainian must be shocked by such comment. And what about palace ‘Ukraina’ or Kyivan Philharmonic Hall? And what about the reconstructed Khreshchatik whose pavement did not yield under the tank parade on the Independence Day? And, at last, what about the beautiful railway station in Kyiv, ‘the railway gates of Ukraine’?
As to me, the latter construction reflects the essence of Ukrainian reforms. Millions grivnas from the budget enabled us to put a fresh paint on the facade, to hang bright signboards and a great national symbol of a trident. Come to the station. The first who would meet you inside would be a ticket speculator. Having paid 10-15 grivnas on top, you can buy a ticket to any train. Do not bargain: the speculator must share his profits with people in the ticket offices and militia. This is a prototype of relations that reign throughout the country. Then you will find the signboard ‘VIP lounge’. It prompts you the unpatriotic thoughts about the existing system of privileges granted not to those who demand them most. The newspaper stall can prompt you the ideas about the freedom of speech which still exists, but is more and more trampled by the state machine. Looking through newspapers will remind you about the permanent creation of new institutions that have to help you, if it would not be blocked by the imperfect Constitution, non-operating laws and authorities without any helpful initiatives. The great number of political parties does not mean pluralism: they are too small to have any impact. on what is going on. The fight that matters is going on not between parties, but between clans.
You may ask me if I like the Kyivan railway station? I shall answer: from outside. If you ask me if I like Ukraine, I shall answer: when I am abroad.
ARMY
A request for mercy
An inhabitant of the village Kamennaya Yaruga of Kharkov region M.P.Nigrutsa, the father of a soldier, turned to the Kharkov Group for human rights protection. It appeared that his son was sentenced as a deserter according to Article 241 of the Penal Code and is now under punishment. In his complaint the father has informed that his son is very ill, but he was not medically examined in proper time and did not get the needed medical aid. Now the soldier is in a hard psychological state.
The Kharkov region Union of soldiers’ mothers turned to the President of Ukraine with a request for mercy. Below we present the text of the request.
To President of Ukraine
Kuchma Leonid Danilovich
We, members of Kharkov region Union of soldiers’ mothers: Shevchenko N.V., Zakharova I.B., Shutaliova M.S. and Nikonova I.M. ask you to consider personally the case of private Nigrutsa Artur Mikolayevich, born in 1977, military unit A-2055, who was called to the army on 25 May 1995 by Ordzhonikidze district recruiting commission of the city of Kharkov. He served as a seaman in the town of Feodosiya.
On 24 April 1997 the court martial of Kharkov garrison sentenced Nigrutsa A.M. for deserting, according to Article 241a of the Penal Code of Ukraine.
Now we want to tell you how it happened that he became a deserter.
Artur Nigrutsa was called to the army, being ill. He had a heavy proctologic disease and the cerebral-brain trauma. During the first month of service his diseases became more acute. He was directed to the surgical department of military unit A-2428, where he stayed from 8 July 1995 to 17 July. He was discharged from the hospital with the recommendation to be operated. In August he got another cerebral-brain trauma with concussion and injury of the head skin (the latter is still visible). The repeated trauma was never registered. His proctologic disease all the time brought him physical and moral sufferings; practically he could not live within a collective. After his head trauma he was sent on leave by family circumstances. In fact, he had to desert.
The boy was detained by militia a year and a half after his desertion. This moment his lot depended on how detailed would be the medical examination. Here all were against the boy: Kharkov military justice did not appoint the medical expertise. When A.Nigrutsa was directed by the military prosecutor to the hospital of the Kharkov garrison, all the medical inspection lasted 20 minutes. When the boy complained that he has a permanent head ache, the doctor said: ‘We all have headaches’. The boy was considered able-bodied, and that meant that he was a deserter. Now the boy stays in the interregional prison hospital, but his treatment is inadequate.
This year the Ministry of Defense and General Prosecutor’s office held an action about deserters, but this action did not concerned those who had already been convicted.
In A.Nigrutsa’s case we have the very circumstances that had been considered by the Ministry of Defense and by the General Prosecutor’s office to be sufficient for removing the responsibility of a deserter.
We beg you to mercy Artur Nigrutsa and to give him the opportunity to return to the family and get medical treatment.
Shevchenko N.V.
Zakharova I.B.
Shutaliova M.S.
Nikonova I.M.
MEDICINE
Again about pink prescriptions
I.Sukhorukova, Kharkov
We have already printed two articles (in 1996 and in 1998) about the notorious order No.226 of 16 July 1996. We remind the reader that this order deprived millions of citizens of Ukraine of necessary antispasmodic medicine, tranquilizers and sedatives in the framework of the campaign against drug addicts. During two years ‘Prava ludyny’, psychiatrists and the sick people were trying to prove the absurdity of the order to the Ministry of Health, to the Commission of Health of the Supreme Rada and to bureaucrats of various levels. The medications withdrawn from the free sale, such as phenobarbital, relanium, medazepam and the like are as dangerous in the line of habit forming as validol. All professional psychiatrists say that, but the Ministry of Health is adamant. The most probable explanation is that some people get enormous profits from the fact that the above-listed medications are bought not in drug stores, but in the black market. And certainly the people who earn money do not care a pin about the sufferings of psychiatric patients to whom all these medications became inaccessible. Nowadays the situation with pink prescriptions, by which patients can buy antispasmodic drugs, tranquilizers and sedatives, has become worse even compared with the situation immediately after the notorious order. Now psychiatric patients must go to the doctors for 2-3 weeks, until their queue will come to get the cherished pink prescription. Preparations in ampoules are forbidden for giving patients, and many people who suffered with acute forms of epilepsy and who always carried ampoules of seduxen or relanium for the fast blocking of attack, carry nothing now. The Ministry of Health is not interested, because if a patient during the fit of epilepsy will get under a car and break his neck falling downstairs, the Ministry will not be responsible. Instead it will put a tick in the list of successful actions against drug taking. This is the real reason – the total irresponsibility. It is interesting that the Ministry of Health did not react to a request from our ombudswoman Karpacheva N.I., who sent this request on our initiative. It is easy to explain the silence: bureaucrats from the Ministry have no answer.
The editorial board of ‘Prava ludyny’ asks all the correspondents and readers to inform the editorial board about how the matters stand with providing tranquilizers in their places; we also ask them to direct letters to the President of Ukraine, asking him to cancel order No.226, we also ask them to direct the complaints to the Supreme Rada of Ukraine to deputy Sergey Potimkov.
ECOLOGY
I protest against building new atomic blocks
A.Dmitriev, Rivne
‘Nuclear power engineering provides now about 50% of the total electric output in Ukraine. The closure of the Chernobyl atomic energy station (AES) without introducing new stations or blocks would increase the shortage of electricity and further expand the practice of switching off the electric energy for the consumers. Independent investigations showed that the cheapest way would be to complete building of two atomic blocks: the second block of Khmelnitsky AES and the fourth block of Rivne AES.
From the official presentation by ‘Energoatom’
The more I read such materials concerning the second block of Khmelnitsky AES (KhAES –2) and the fourth block of Rivne AES (RAES-4), the more I feel that the old socialist times have returned. I mean the times when someone decided my lot camouflaging the matter with nice words and shameless lies. And no one asked me, whether I agree? But I do not agree! I protest!
The reason is that the arguments of ‘Energoatom’ is a pack of lies.
They say that atomic stations output about 50% in Ukraine, but the fact is that their total output is twice less. They do not say that thermal electric stations do not work because they do not have finances for fuel, and if to solve the problem of non-payments, the importance of atomic power will decrease twice. ‘Energoatom’ uses the moment and blackmails me that electricity will be switched off. Near my home four reactors work, and I stay in darkness. I do not believe that if their number became six the light in my home would be around the clock. The new reactors will begin to produce electricity not earlier than in three years. If the authorities do not waste one and a half billion grivnas planned for building KhAES-2 and RAES-4 for coal and gas, maybe it will not be dark today? And where does the country intend to take this enormous sum if they do not pay for the last six months the wages to atomic station operators, thus forcing them to strike? They say that credits are promised from abroad. And what shall we repay the credits with? Again with electricity, while my home will be dark.
And why do they tell me that the atomic energy is the cheapest?
This is a lie. They count the cost of an atomic kilowatt without including the costs of reprocessing and burying of radioactive waste, which makes more than 75% of the total cost. They also do not include the cost of dismounting an AES, and one must understand that each AES after 25-30 years of operation must be stopped, dismounted and buried. And the cost of dismounting, according to evaluation of Western specialists, equals the cost of its building. If to count accurately the cost of an atomic kilowatt, then it will appear that it is three times more expensive than a ‘gas’ one and two times than the ‘coal’ one.
I have not invented these data: they are taken from the school textbook ‘Basic ecological knowledge’.
Why does not ‘Energoatom’ mention other problems related with KhAES-2 and RAES-4? It is known that Khmelnitsky AES ‘drinks out’ the river of Goryn, which once was the main water source for the population of the Rivne region. And by now only one reactor works there. If another reactor were built, the water would be taken from the river Styr, and nobody knows what people would drink then.
Besides, Rivne AES is built in the zone of tectonic breaks. One slight earthquake will devastate the region.
And what do they intend to do with radioactive waste? This will be hundreds of tonnes of very dangerous substances. Where to bury it and how, nobody knows.
I am sure that there are more problems and danger than use from atomic reactors. Many people around me think the same. But it is not sufficient to think, one must do something. the local authorities decided to hold a meeting of the local population with ‘Energoatom’ experts. The meeting is kept postponed.
I appeal to all parties and public organizations: protest! We do not need new atomic blocks, we need the future!
PENITENTIARY SYSTEM
A reader may ask, why we publish in the English review a somewhat abridged back translation of the article of an English author. We publish a back translation because unfortunately we have not the original, we somewhat abridge it because we have shortage of space and we publish it because it is interesting and instructive.
Alternatives to prisons: reflections and experience
Vivien Stern, General Secretary of Penal Reform International, London
RESTRICTIVE CHARACTER OF IMPRISONMENT
During the decade from 1885 to 1895 sir Godfrey Lashington was the Home Secretary of Great Britain. In his report to the government committee on the state of the prison system he said: ‘I believe that the position of a convict during the entire term of his incarceration does not favour his correction owing to the destruction of his self-esteem, not sufficient satisfaction of his moral instincts, the absence of any opportunity to do or receive good and the permanent intercourse with criminals only…
‘I believe that the genuine road to man’s correction and to his return to society lies in the opposite direction, but, certainly, this relates to the realm of ideas. It cannot be embodied in prison. Actually, those unfavourable conditions which I mentioned are inseparable from prison life.’ (Quoted from Rutherford, 1986)
Up to now prison regained all the features mentioned one hundred years ago by sir Godfrey Lashington. The purpose of incarceration is nominally to correct people, but, as a rule, they become worse. Prison breaks the links of man with society and behaviour patterns adopted in the society. Those, who had before the incarceration a home and a family, may loose both, as well as their job, since their employers will not take them back. Each person goes from the prison with the stamp of a jail-bird. They have many chances to continue their life as outlaws.
So it is not surprising that among the people who get behind the bars there are many of those who had already been there. The recollection of the prison term does not stop people from committing the same crimes, for which they had already got to prison before. In England and Wales more than half men, who stayed their term in prison, were caught again during two years for another crime (Home Office, 1995).
The incarceration could be justified if it kept people from committing another crime. It had to intimidate people and make them abstain from committing crimes. In the actual fact this conclusion is not justified. Investigations show that a stern punishment can restrain offenders at the lowest level of the punishment scale. Thus, for example, the punishment for overspeeding or parking in the prohibited place can have a restraining effect on drivers. In general, the concepts of restraining is based on the assumption that people commit crimes after a sober calculation. In reality, many crimes are committed when the force of emotions or when the impact of alcohol or drugs overrule any rational arguments. In fact, most people are restrained from crime not by the fear of punishment, but by self-control, consciousness and so on, by what is called ‘the inner policeman’. Incarceration is also inefficient if to regard it as a policy directed at decreasing crime. The question of the interdependence between the crime level and the incarceration was many times discussed. Roger Tarling counted that for decreasing the crime level in England and Wales by 1%, it is necessary to increase the population of convicts by 25% (Tarling, 1993). There are opinions that a wide-scale application of incarceration is the least efficient from all methods which the society can apply in the struggle with crime. Programmes to prevent crime, to increase the chances for the youth to find a job, family support and measures to fight social isolation – these are, perhaps, the most efficient ways to achieve the desired aim (NACRO, 1995).
Prison is a place where the probability of violating human rights is rather great. Article 10 of the International Pact of civil and political rights reads:
‘All people deprived of freedom have the right for humane treatment and respect of dignity possessed by human person’.
Nonetheless, in prisons of the whole world humanity and respect to convicts is rather an exception than a rule. When a special UNO inspector on torture came to Russia in July 1994 in order to estimate whether the conditions of the preliminary incarceration may be regarded as torture, he said after visiting two Moscow prisons:
‘A special inspector would need the poetic talent of Dante and artistic mastery of Bosch to depict the hellish conditions which he observed in the cells…’ (United Nations, 1994).
During parliamentary hearings in Moscow on 24 October 1995 general Yu.I.Kalinin, the head of the Main Directorate of the Penitentiary Department of the Ministry of Interior of Russia, said:
‘I must frankly confess that sometimes official conclusions on the death of convicts are false. people die of overcrowding, of shortage of oxygen and of other living conditions in a cell. Cases of death of oxygen shortage were observed practically in all preliminary prisons of Russia… The critical situation in such prisons is becoming worse every month because the average number of convicts increases monthly by 3.5 – 4 thousand…’ (Moscow Centre, 1996).
In January 1995 Talton Henderson, a judge from San-Francisco, issued a resolution that the living conditions in Pelican Bay prison in California do not correspond to law, and he gave California authorities 120 days for correcting the situation. In his resolution the judge listed eleven cases of attacks at convicts.
‘One of them had four teeth knocked out, another had torn skin on the head, and no medical aid was given to him until some flesh started to peel off. Still another convict had his jaw shattered, and one of the prison guards twisted a convict’s arm and pushed it through the window for passing food, until the bone broke. The crack was heard throughout the building.
‘Visitors were amazed when they saw naked men who were kept outdoors in narrow metallic cages in nasty weather. The convicts were kept handcuffed so that their hands and ankles nearly touched.’ (Observer, 1995).
In Europe one also comes across cases of cruel treatment of convicts. Representatives of the European Committee on preventing torture inspect prisons in the European countries, which ratified the European Convention on preventing torture, and conclude that sometimes convicts are treated inhumanly, in the way that degrade their dignity.
For instance, representatives of the Committee inspected prisons of the United Kingdom in August 1990 and in the prisons of Brickstone, Wandworth and Leeds they found so nasty conditions of upkeep of convicts that they accused the United Kingdom in inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners (Council of Europe, 1991).
Another example of inhumane and degrading treatment was found in Luxembourg in 1993: a woman gave birth to a baby and in several minutes after birth the baby was taken from mother by the prison personnel and passed to adopting parents (Council of Europe, 1993).
In inspecting France in 1991 the Committee regarded as scandalous the practice when women convicts were directed to usual clinics to give birth to children and were handcuffed to their beds during or after birth (Council of Europe, 1993a).
The Netherlands were sharply criticized by the Committee, which inspected this country in 1992, for the conditions of upkeep of prisoners in special isolators. So, in Unit 4A of the Demersluis prison the attitude of the personnel to convicts was unkind, scornful and sometimes openly hostile. Convicts’ requests on calling physicians, lawyers or social workers were ignored (Council of Europe, 1993b).
In 1992 we established that Italian prisons were awfully overcrowded. For instance, in the Milan prison San-Vittore with the planned capacity of 800 prisoners 2000 inmates were actually kept. The Committee assessed this as inhumane and degrading treatment (Council of Europe, 1995).
Thus we see that the punishment in the form of incarceration takes especially acute forms in the developing countries. For such countries prisons are a very expensive inheritance of the colonial past. There is a considerable number of places in the world, where a tourist doing a town comes to a wall of the special form and guesses that the town prison is located behind the wall. If he wants, he may see the entrance gates resembling the gates of the London Wormwood Scrabs or Paris La Sante. The Western form of incarceration, which has many drawbacks in the Western Europe or North America, becomes a real hell in the developing countries, where the concentration of a large group of people owing to their full inactivity and all expenditures on food, clothing and oversight, lies like a dead load of the scarce state budget. Convicts cannot feed their families and cannot feed themselves. The state lacks the money either. There are no finances on programmes aimed at smoothing the social adaptation, some corrective work and facilitation of finding a job after the release. All these measures make an inalienable part of the Western system of punishment. That is why incarceration in the developing countries, where they have problems with canalization and parasites, with a shortage of physicians, medication and water, with extremely overcrowded cells, may become the death sentence. One must also take into account that the prison personnel has very low pay and correspondingly is corrupted.
Someone may argue that all these drawbacks are justified by the fact that society guards itself in this way from serious violent crimes – murders, rapes and robberies. Yes, imprisonment really protects people from the criminals that stay in prison. But the majority of prisoners throughout the world is not as dangerous. The majority of them is pity criminals. they are representatives of the poorest class of the urban population. In all the world prisons are filled with the poor, jobless and mental cases. In many countries representatives of national minorities make the unproportionally large part of the prison population, as, for example, Afro-Americans in the USA and aboriginals in Australia. For many poorest people and representatives of national minorities incarceration is just one of many injustices with which they come across in their daily lives. Many women get to prisons because they retorted with violence to violence which they suffered from their husbands or sexual partners, or they got there for pushing drugs to facilitate the beggarly existence of themselves and their families.
GROWTH OF INCARCERATION AS A KIND OF PUNISHMENT
Nonetheless, incarceration as the kind of punishment is applied in Western countries more and more often. So, in 1980 half a million of people were incarcerated in the USA. Now their number is 1.6 million. Each year 11 million people are sent behind the bars in the USA, and many of them have not committed violence. Now two thirds of the prison population stay in prison for crimes not connected with violence. In the beginning of 1997 the USA counted 600 convicts per 100,000 of the population. The growth of the incarcerated in Europe was observed, but not at such great rate. The viewpoint accepted in the USA that a great number of the incarcerated is inevitable and even desirable, has not been rooted in Europe, but now one can observe that it begins to grow. So, in the Netherlands there were 2356 prison cells and 17 incarcerated per 100,000, which was one of the lowest level in the world. In 1994 these indexes were 8235 cells and 55 incarcerated per 100,000, and by the end of 1996 the number of the incarcerated per 100,000 grew to 80 (De Jonge, 1996).
In other countries of the Western Europe the growth was not so impressing, but also rather significant. In Spain of 1988 there were less than 30 thousand of the incarcerated, by 1994 this number grew to 41000, i.e. by 40%. During the same six-year period the growth in Italy was 48%, in Greece – 60% and in Portugal – 46%. In Austria the number of incarcerated increased by 16% and even in the Scandinavian countries with the traditionally low level of the incarcerated the increase was 32% in Norway and 23% in Sweden (Council of Europe, 1996). As the result of the ‘Programme 13000’ adopted in France 25 new prisons for 12850 inmates appeared from 1989 to 1992 (Direction de l’administration penitentiaire, 1996).
The United Kingdom differs from other European countries by a stronger influence on the side of the USA. In the 1990s the number of the incarcerated in England and Wales grew rather fast. By the end of January 1993 their number was 41500, and in the beginning of 1997 this number grew to 58000, and then the crisis of lack of vacancies broke out. In the period between 1981 to 1996 many new places, 12500, i.e. one third greater, were found. It was not all building: suitable houses were found, which could be rearranged for prisons. Big ships were considered for their potential safety. Deserted military bases and even the Holiday Camp were inspected to determine if they were suitable as places of incarceration.
The growth of the punishments in the form of incarceration can have serious consequences for the Western society. Such policy demands very big sums and absorb more and more resources, which could be left for creative purposes. From 1976 to 1989 the expenditures in the USA for so-called correcting establishments grew by 95%. At the same period the expenditures for elementary and high school fell by 2% and for higher school – by 6%. Such deformation of expense priorities may be very serious for the economic progress of a highly industrialized country.
Besides, this phenomenon is ‘a sin before the future’, as Norval Morris, a professor of Chicago University, wrote (Morris and Rothman, 1995). Perhaps, he had in view that when a noticeable proportion of younger people shapes their individuality in prison, then in the depth of society a subsociety grows, consisting of people bred on antisocial values. Their links, mutual relations and structures are based on criminality. They belong not to the society, but to illegal organizations, thus representing a hidden source of destabilization and conflicts.
Using prisons for the punishment for pity crimes against property, for street brawls, or for keeping little quantities of drugs for personal use and so forth is an expensive measure from the economic point of view and a destructive one from the social point of view. That is why all the countries in their punitive policy must minimize the application of incarceration and find alternative ways of the struggle with crime and of resolving conflicts between citizens.
NEED IN ALTERNATIVE MEASURES
Vaclav Havel, the President of Czechia, spent several years in prison. Form there he wrote letters to his wife Olga. Here is an extract:
‘I never feel pity to myself, as it should be expected, but I pity other convicts and in general I feel pity that prisons must exist, that they are such as they are, and humanity has not invented a better way for solving certain problems.’ (Havel, 1983).
During two recent decades considerable efforts were spent to ‘invent a better way for solving certain problems’. In his report on alternatives to incarceration in Europe presented to the UNO Helsinki Institute Norman Bishop remarked:
‘All European governments consider incarceration as a measure that negatively affects a convict. Besides, this sanction is too expensive. These two reasons suffice to prefer alternative measures of punishment.’ (Bishop, 1988).
In the comments to ‘The UNO minimal standard rules unrelated to incarceration’ (Tokyo rules) it isstated:
‘Incarceration may not be regarded as a proper sanction relative to a wide circle of various felonies, especially to those who would hardly commit another crime in the future, who is sentenced for petty crimes or who needs medical, psychiatric or social aid.
‘Having understood the problems related with incarceration leads to a greater interest in searching efficient ways of granting aid to wrong-doers within the frame of society, without incarceration. People understand better and better that incarceration is usually unable to return criminals to a full-valued life; moreover, the incarceration may rather turn them into hardened criminals, so incarceration should be left only for the most serious and dangerous criminals. Incarceration is economically expensive and it additionally has social dangers. Many countries have come across with the problem of overcrowded prisons, and where the problem is especially acute, it is impossible to breed a convict to law-abiding life after the release.’
Throughout the world a wide circle of alternative punishments is applied nowadays. The replacement of incarceration by some other punishment may occur at three stages: ante-court, during verdict and after doing part of the sentence.
ANTE-COURT STAGE
The ability to avoid incarceration before the court is very important for an accused. All international norms on treatment of the detained point out an immense difference between those who are just accused and those who are considered guilty by the court. People awaiting a court verdict and staying in preliminary prisons are legally regarded as non-guilty until the verdict is declared. Nevertheless, it is them who are practically kept in the worst conditions. That is why their rights at the ante-court stage should be observed very carefully. Article 9 (3) of the International Pact on civil and political right demands that incarcerating people before the court verdict should not be ‘a general rule’. Tokyo rules declare that ‘incarceration in criminal matters before the court must be regarded as an extreme measure, with the account taken of the interests of the crime investigation and protection of society and the victim.’ (Rules, 6.1).
One of the most popular alternatives to the preliminary incarceration is a guarantee. The court may release the accused on some conditions which he has to obey. Sometimes a bail is given. The money is transferred to a court, and it is confiscated if the accused does not come to a trial. Sometimes the guarantee is given by the judge, accompanied with some conditions: for example, to come to a police precinct regularly or not to leave some address. In the United Kingdom there are special houses in which a suspect must live before his trial. With respect to younger people some guarantee programmes are developed when the young accused must agree to certain social measures aimed at support of the stability of their lives. There exist such a measure as house arrest, and now it is used in some countries with application of electronic control fixed in the place of the arrested at any moment of time. The arrested must carry electronic sensors, signals from which are taken at the central control station. Some programmes include electronic survey as a part of the sentence which is a punishment without incarceration. Other programmes include such observation relative to a convict released from the prison after doing part of the sentence in prison; these prisoners are released conditionally, and one of the conditions is to be electronically observed. Electronic survey is also used by the court as a sentence to the petty criminals connected with crimes against property or with violation traffic rules; in all other respects these people lead a normal family life, have a job and live at home.
The British government supports the direction of electronic observation. The first experiment in this sphere was carried out in 1989. During six months three courts asked the accused what they prefer: incarceration or fixing an ankle bracelet with the weak radio transmitter. The radio signal was received at the central station through the telephone of the observed person when the latter was at home. All in all 150 volunteers were picked out. The results appeared to be unfavourable. Only 50 people got under observation, 11 of them committed new crimes being under observation, and 18 more violated the conditions of the bail in some way. The system was rather expensive, it often failed raising the alarm when all was right. The people on bail complained that because they had to stay at home too much time, they had difficulties in finding a job.
‘If to take into account that not many of the accused can be put under electronic surveillance safely, it follows that there will be too few candidates to make the system of electronic surveillance rentable’ (Home office, 1990).
Besides, there are measures which can replace the trial if the accused confesses himself guilty, and the claimant agrees. When using such a scheme of reconciliation, the claimant and the offender meet in the presence of the competent person with the purpose of finding a way out of the conflict without a formal trial. Sometimes this procedure is applied completely outside the framework of the criminal court. In certain legislation the prosecutor, with the agreement of the claimant, rules out some compensation on behalf of the society and that ends the matter.
VERDICT-DELIVERING STAGE
At the stage of delivering a verdict there are several opportunities to avoid incarceration. In many countries such measures as reproach, reproof or reprimand are applied relative to minor law-offenders. This kind of punishment often enables minor prisoners to comprehend what they did and never repeat the felony. Conditional incarceration is applied; the condition requires that the condemned should not commit any crimes during a certain period unless his conditional incarceration would become actual.
Financial sanctions and sanctions with confiscation of property are applied in many countries for petty crimes against property. It was established that financial punishment is more efficient if it depends on the income of the criminal. In many countries legislators must be careful about the size of fines because if the fine is too large, the criminal must commit another crime to pay for the previous one or to be directed to prison for a petty crime. This happens especially often in the countries with the high level of unemployment and poor system of social aid.
In a number of countries, such as Sweden and Germany, there exists a system of ‘daily fine’ which is calculated according to the daily income of the criminal, so poor people pay smaller fines than richer people. In early 1990s a similar system was introduced in England and Wales, but it caused protests since protesters believed that fines of the poor were too small and those for the rich – too high. The public pressure was so strong that the administration had to reject it, although before the suggestion the scheme was tested in several trials. In several countries a financial recompensing on the side of the criminal on behalf of the victim is practiced. This system has that advantage that the victim immediately participates in taking the decision. It the wrongdoer has not enough money or if the committed crime cannot be estimated in terms of money, then the recompensing scheme is meaningless.
A confiscation is also used, for example, a confiscation of the driving license, or money or a house. Usually such sanctions are applied to people who got their fortune in drug-trafficking.
In England there is such a version of mild punishment as ‘attending the centre’. This sanction is applied to people younger than 21. The centre is open during three hours in the afternoon or Saturday. Most of such centres function under the aegis of police, but civil people work there as well. The centre organizes physical exercises, lessons in handicrafts, lectures on the topic of civil duties and medical aid. The punishment consists in attending the centre for 12, 24 or 36 hours. Actually the main aid of such punishment is to force young people to skip several football matches.
For various methods of correction many variants exist, and, as a rule, they are connected with some surveillance, which is administered by some people appointed by the court. In many countries many law-breakers may be demanded to be under surveillance of a social officer, probation officer or some other qualified person appointed by the competent agency. Law-breakers have the duty to meet their supervisors on a regular basis and discuss the problems related to the crime in question, to the political and economic situation, etc. Inspectors shall carefully observe the life of the prisoners and their social re-orientation.
According to the Tokyo rules: ‘The purpose of the surveillance is considered to be achieved if the law-breaker shows that he regained responsibility for his actions and is capable to lead a law-abiding life without external interference‘.
The cooperation between the law-breaker and his supervisor is very important for the efficiency of such punishment.
As the experience showed, such kind of punishment is difficult to organize in the rural country.
(The article is to be continued in the next issue)
WE REMEMBER
Day of political convict in Russia
30 November 1998 on radio ‘Liberty’ a round table was held conducted by Lev Roytman.
Lev Roytman: On October 30 in Moscow and in some other Russian towns the Day of memory of victims of political repressions was very modestly celebrated. In 1974 this day was first marked as the Day of political convict in Perm and Potma concentration camps.
Ten years ago this day was marked without repressions on the side of authorities for the first time. Then in Luzhniki stadium several thousands gathered. Now October 30 is the official Day of memory of victims of political repressions. This year only several hundreds of people came to the Solovetsky stone in Lubianka square. The day before the Komsomol anniversary was celebrated, and this jubilee gathered the number of people almost one thousand times more. The participants of the round table gathered in the Moscow editorial board of radio ‘Liberty’. They were: Lev Timofeev, the former political convict, now a publicist and writer; Aleksandr Daniel, a member of Directorate of ‘Memorial’, the manager of the research program ‘History of dissent in the USSR’; Marina Katys, a Moscow correspondent of radio ‘Liberty’. The first question I adress to Aleksandr Daniel:
Aleksandr, how do you explain such an insignificant interest to this date today?
Aleksandr Daniel: Before answering your question I would like to make a correction: ten years ago, on October 30, the mourning march in Kuropaty near Minsk, where the mass burial of the victims of the regime had been discovered, was brutally scattered by law enforcers. So you cannot say that ten years ago this date was marked without any repressions. Now about your question. First of all the interest is not so insignificant. This year more people came to the Solovetsky stone than last year, the date was marked in St.Petersburg, in Ekaterinburg, in Perm and in Voronezh. The Day was marked in other towns too, but I still do not have data about it. So the interest is alive. Another side of the question is that the public lost massive interest in the topic of political repressions that was observed ten, nine or eight years ago. But we must understand that then this interest was directed not so to history, as to politics. Being interested in the tragic moments of our history, people in fact participated in the political life of those years. This interest was a sign of opposition, a sign of wishing changes. Now it is possible to be interested in politics without camouflage.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Aleksandr. I may add to your list of towns that people marked the Day in Khabarovsk, where they held the dirge for victims of political repressions, and in Tomsk, where former convicts of the GULAG gathered at the sorrow stone. Now I have a question to Lev Timofeev:
You are a political convict. What is the meaning of the Day, if any? There are no political convicts now in Russia, except Nikitin who is tried as a spy for his Green Peace activity and is a journalist Pasko, persecuted in the Far East, but there are no mass political repressions.
Lev Timofeev: Yes, the country marks the Day of memory of victims of political repressions, but not the Day of political convict. There is a great difference between political convicts, i.e. the people who went to the concentration camps, knowing what they are doing, and victims of political repressions, who often had absolutely no relation to politics. When Kronid Liubarsky initiated the Day of political convict, he meant the former. Certainly, both Nikitin, who is tried in St.Petersburg, and Pasko, who is tried in the Far East, are fighters for the idea because they comprehended deadly consequences of the criminal policy of the authorities with respect to nature, and who dared to defend not only our interests, but interests of oncoming generations. The Day of political convict is their Day, and we must speak about them.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Lev. To be exact, Nikitin’s case is again sent for additional investigation, since the accusation in espionage, in divulging state secrets and so forth appeared groundless. As to Pasko, he is held in custody and his case is postponed. Now a question to marina Katys:
You, Marina, on October 30 were at the Solovetsky stone – this is a boulder which had been transported from the Solovetsky Isles to Lubianka square. I knew that several hundreds, about 300 to 400, gathered there. Tell us what was going on?
Marina Katys: It seems to me that the number of people was larger. Aleksandr Daniel is prompting that about one thousand, but the matter is not in numbers. First of all, about the age of those who came to the Solovetsky stone – they were elderly people, almost without youth. And there is another side which seemed important to me – the day became a sort of unofficial red date. It is one thing when the ‘Memorial’ puts a wreath on the stone but it is quite another business when it is done by leaders of political parties. Grigoriy Yavlinsky and Egor Gaydar not just held candles like the others, no, they put wreaths, elbowing through the crowd. It looked as if they searched for some popularity by doing this, and it seemed to me rather unpleasant.
Lev Roytman: Thank you, Marina.
Aleksandr, as one of the initiators of the marking the Day at the Solovetsky stone, tell me what history can teach younger people?
Aleksandr Daniel: I think that I must add another victim of today: a Krasnodar human rights protection activist Chaykin who stays in prison now under a faked criminal accusation. I want to comment Lev’s estimation of the transition of the Day of political convict to the Day of memory of victims of political repressions. When Kronid Liubarsky and his comrades organized the Day of political convict, they did not want this day to remain the Day of political convict forever. They wanted the Day to disappear as soon as possible, together with the very concept of ‘political convict’. They would like this day to become the Day of memory of victims of political repressions and in 1991 the Day was renamed correspondingly. Maybe it was done a little prematurely, there are still political prisoners but certainly not so many as 10-20 years ago.
Lev Timofeev: I think that there is a great difference in the lot of those, whom we call victims of political repressions. I recall Nikolay Bukharin, Dmitry Likhachov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and thousands of personages of Solzhenitsyn’s ‘GULAG’. Their lots are different from those of Kronid Liubarsky, Anatoly Marchenko, Vasyl Stus and others, who consciously declared the war with the Soviet totalitarian system. I think that the Day of political convict was declared because it was correct to make objective the very fact of this struggle, about which many were afraid even to think. Even now the social courage is in shortage. Nikitin and Pasko are people who knew that they fought against a secretive and threatening opponent. They started to fight and appeared behind the bars. I am sure that this aspect of the Day of political convict, the day of struggle, the Day of courage, the Day of defending rights, must not be forgotten.
Aleksandr Daniel: Here I must agree with Lev: whichever the name be, it was, is and must always remain the Day of struggle. There exists danger of the Communist revenge or some other totalitarian revenge. I do not agree with Marina, who disliked laying wreaths on the Solovetsky stone by leaders of democratic parties. I find this fact very important: they put the wreaths on the same stone, although the democratic movement is split.
Lev Roitman: Thank you, Aleksandr. I want to conclude the transmission with the voice of a Muscovite from a mini-interview taken by Marina Katys:
– This must be a red day in the calendar, and if we feel our connection with the history of the country, we must come here on the Day of political convict in hope that political convicts will forever disappear from the history of our country.