Prison rules will change in Russia: more calls and visits

Russian inmates will receive more visits and calls. The Ministry of Justice has taken a step towards humanizing the conditions of detention of prisoners and those sentenced to imprisonment. Prison inmates will be able to see their children more often, and those sentenced to imprisonment will be able to dial the phone numbers of their relatives. True, there are two conditions: the good will of the investigator and technical feasibility.

Today, the Cabinet of Ministers, represented by the Ministry of Justice, presented its initiative to the Duma members for the first reading. We are talking about amendments to two laws – “On detention” and the Criminal Executive Code. That is, innovations await both those who are still waiting in prison for the court’s verdict, and those who are already serving the punishment prescribed by Themis.

Convicts will be able to call relatives from the colony more often. Deputy Head of the Ministry of Justice Andrei Loginov told deputies how things are in places of deprivation of liberty now:

— The law provides those sentenced to imprisonment with the right to telephone conversations. But in the absence of technical capabilities, the administration of the correctional institution may limit the number of telephone conversations to six per year, the deputy minister explained.

The amendments double the number of calls. That is, even if there are communication problems in the prison, the administration will have to provide each convict with 12 calls per year.

For those who are still waiting for their fate in pre-trial detention centers, officials have prepared their own novel. True, this is not for everyone, but only for those who have children under 14 years old. Such prisoners will be able to see their offspring more often. The bill gives them one additional date per month to do this.

Deputy Elena Drapeko (SRZP) was interested in who exactly convicts would be able to call from colonies under the new scheme. For example, is calling a lawyer included in these 12? She clarified: she is not interested out of idle curiosity. They receive letters to the State Duma from bar associations.

– We are talking now about convicts. That is, about those for whom a court verdict has already been passed. Convicts have the right to make these calls according to the list of those persons who are close to them and according to the telephone numbers, addresses and names that he declares upon admission to the correctional colony, the deputy head of the Ministry of Justice emphasized, as if hinting: well, which lawyer is close?

Loginov drew the attention of the Duma members: the amendments deal only with those cases when the colony does not have the technical capabilities.

“If the technical possibility exists, and this is the overwhelming majority of our correctional institutions, then the number of calls there is practically unlimited and amounts to dozens per month,” explained the deputy minister.

Parliamentarians also viewed the additional visits with suspicion. The draft amendments do not stipulate clear conditions for providing such a meeting between a prisoner and his children. So what happens: everything will be left to the administration of the pre-trial detention center? Are there any corruption risks here?

“This is not the administration, this is the permission of the investigator,” Loginov reassured the doubters. And at the same time he moved on to prison arithmetic: two plus one – this is the formula for meetings that defendants will now have with children under 14 years of age. But it turned out that this is still an equation with one unknown:

“We understand that we are talking about cases where the prisoner receives permission from the investigator. This is a serious problem, which, unfortunately, has not yet been fully resolved. The position of the Ministry of Justice here is indirect. First of all, the position of the investigative authorities, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, security services, and so on,” Andrei Loginov explained the situation.

Deputies Nina Ostanina (KPRF) and Svetlana Razvorotneva (United Russia) asked the representative of the Ministry of Justice to give women even more visits with children: “Mother is a special title,” said Nina Aleksandrovna.

Loginov agreed with this and even gave exact figures: as of February 1, there were 2,821 prisoners in Russian pre-trial detention centers. But to reduce the entire humanization program to dating only, he says, is absurd.

— There is a women’s pre-trial detention center in my district. There, women are held without sentencing for several years. One date with the kids a month is very cruel. Technically, it would be possible to provide for one date per week, or better yet, two,” Deputy Minister Svetlana Razvorotneva tried to pity the deputy minister.

Loginov brought her back to the basics of arithmetic: there will be three dates in total. There were two, plus one more will be added. And then the “unknown” surfaced again.

“It all depends on the investigator’s permission,” the official repeated.

It is possible that the bill will be amended by the second reading. In any case, the relevant State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption urged Duma members to send them if they don’t like something in the current version. In the meantime, deputies voted for the amendments unanimously (380 votes in favor).