The government supported “hybrid” colonies with different types of regimes

The Government Commission on Legislative Activities approved amendments to the Ministry of Justice on the creation of “hybrid colonies,” or joint-type correctional institutions. The newspaper reported this “Vedomosti” with reference to the accompanying documents for the project.

“Hybrid” colonies will be those in which there are isolated areas with different types of regimes, as well as prison areas and pre-trial detention centers. The creation of such colonies is provided for in the concept of development of the penal system for the period until 2030, approved by the government in April 2021.

Human Rights Council member Eva Merkacheva believes that “hybrid” colonies will help avoid long-term transportation of convicts. According to Alexey Gavrishev, managing partner of the consulting company AVG Legal, such colonies will reduce the cost of transporting convicts from pre-trial detention centers.

A “hybrid” colony with three thousand places is being designed in the Kaluga region – the head of the Ministry of Justice Konstantin Chuychenko announced this back in the spring of 2023 at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The cost of building such a colony is 13 billion rubles. Such colonies are being built in Ulan-Ude and Chita; 20 billion rubles have been allocated for them. The Minister of Justice called the creation of such colonies “economically justified”, since they would save on the maintenance of convicts. According to preliminary estimates, the construction of such colonies will pay for itself in about 10 years.

According to lawyer Anton Timchenko, the main difficulty for such colonies is the combination of several legal regimes. In particular, internal regulations or requirements for living conditions in correctional colonies and pre-trial detention centers are different.

At the end of last year, FSIN Director Arkady Gostev reportedthat pre-trial detention centers are overcrowded in 13 regions, including Moscow. As of November 1, 2023, there were 105 thousand people in pre-trial detention centers. At the same time, as of the same date in 2022, the figure was 112.8 thousand people. The chairman of the capital’s Public Monitoring Commission, Georgy Volkov, said that due to overcrowding in the Moscow pre-trial detention center, people are sent to the regions to await an appeal.

Anastasia Larina