If you have issues viewing or accessing this file, please contact us at NCJRS.gov. • , I • • , • I --' ,. , " .. r- lj Winter 1991 1 Contents VOL. 2, NO.1. WINTER 1991 3 The Log Special Report 30 Working the Morning' 300~ Correctional notes and comments 10 Inside Soviet Prisons / ocxYf ~ Watch Meeting Death in Prison A report by the U.S. delegation John A. Mattsen A unique portrait of a correctional "Quality sleep" is all too often an elusive The First Offenders' Program goal for both inmates and staff. Here are system-and a nation-in transition. at FeI La Tuna some practical guidelines for achieving Innovations in Satellite Feeding it-especially for shift workers. Wartime Precautions 24 Involuntary TreatmentI'), IOOOY, Bill Burlington The courts are increasingly involved in ~ome of the most difficult treatment ;sues prison administrators have to lake. 38 Ethics and Prison J 0005 I Administrators en ·E J. David Newell (j) Q; ....,a: 0. A philosopher offers a framework for t) en e. ·s~ ethical decisionmaking in corrections. Q) CT u ~ .~ E enQ) Q) >. <> en c en ~ ....,a:* a: t)z .9* iii'" :5'" ....,'" 0 Cii ~~ c 'w ~ ·E 53: (1 00 c-o.c Cii c n'~ 0 .,,0.",>- 00 15 ~u Z o.Q) Q) ~£ :5 11'0 oS 1:C t!.~ Winter 1991 JeCDLfe 11 Inside Soviet Prisons Office of the Procurator General. Both The criminal justice system is not Penal reforms and the meetings were unusually candid, as insulated from these radical changes. To changing Soviet society Soviet officials were anxious to learn the contrary, the government is making he Ministry of Internal about the U.S. prison system and to hear great efforts to improve its criminal Affairs is now restructuring our comments and criticisms regarding justice system while simultaneously its penal system. Minister their prison system. facing the challenges of justice admini­ Bakatin emphasized two principal goals stration in a rapidly changing society. for penal reform. First, there must be a The Soviet Government's gracious balance between the rights of prisoners assistance afforded us the opportunity to According to the Minister of Internal and the rights of victims. learn a great deal during our 6-day stay. Affairs, Vadim Bakatin, there are The Soviet correctional system has more currently 761,000 inmates in the Soviet Second, the historic orientation of the in common with the U.S. system than Union, held in 2,100 labor camps or prisons must be changed. In the past, any of us had anticipated upon arrival. prisons throughout the U.S.S.R. In prisons in the Soviet Union have been Nevertheless, the visit was short, and addition, approximately 200,000 pretrial used to fulfill Soviet production quotas. there is much left to learn. We hope that and unsentenced prisoners are in deten­ Societal goals for imprisonment­ future official interchanges will enable tion facilities (called "investigations retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and the two countries to share information prisons") and 160,000 alcoholics are incapacitation-were subverted by the about the challenging problems of committed to 250 treatment facilities. need to produce goods and services for administering a humane prison system. Soviet society. Now, according to Assuming that these figures are accurate, Minister Bakatin, the traditional purposes The Soviet correctional the number of prisoners in the Soviet of imprisonment must supersede the system today Union is roughly comparable to that in nation's productive needs. Thi~ will be the U.S., relative to the size of the total I---~F undamental transfOlmations achieved through decentralization-both populations. That comparability is I are taking place in Soviet of the administration of prisons and of relatively recent, however; until 1985, l __.___ Government and society. the Soviet economy. the Soviet prison popUlation was 1.6 million-double what it is today. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is working with the Soviet Parliament to reform criminal and penal laws. The first phase included an amnesty for nonviolent and political prisoners, as a result of which half the prison population was SIBERIA released. As a result of these reforms, the prison popUlation was reduced from 1.6 million in 1985 to its present 761,000. Today, the care with which this amnesty was implemented is being called into question as the Soviet Union experiences a very rapid increase in the crime rate. The crime rate climbed 31 percent last Photos for this article year and is now increasing at a rate of • courtesy of various members • of the U.S. delegation. 20 percent. Translation assistance by Kitty Urban. An obvious explanation for this increase in crime is that certain offenders who pose a danger to society were inadver- 12 Federal Prisons Journal tently released in the amnesty. In a single organizational structure for the classification system markedly different addition, as Minister Bakatin noted, administration of the entire Soviet from our own. The labor camps are changes in all aspects of life in the Soviet corrections system. divided into four different "regimes": Union, including economic and political ordinary, strengthened, strict, and special. changes, the questioning of traditional The Soviet Department of Corrections is The regimes are apparently not distin­ values, and the resurgence of ethnic within the Ministry of Internal Affairs; guished by security considerations, but nationalism, have generated greater the Director of the Department reports to by the inmates' access to certain privi­ willingness on the part of Soviet citizens a Deputy Minister. The Department is leges. The number of letters, packages, to challenge authority. Increased ultimately responsible for the 2,100 labor and visits per year to which the prisoners expectations on the part of Soviet citizens camps and the small number of prisons are entitled varies according to regime. and an impatience with the pace of operating in the Soviet Union and In addition, the prisoners' daily caloric economic reforms contribute to the oversees the 400,000 employees working intake is adjusted downward as the growth in crime. Finally, just as the for the Department of Corrections severity of the regime increases. United States has a high rate of drug­ throughout the system: However, much related crime, the Soviets have a severe of the responsibility for operating the Most of the 761,000 prisoners are problem with alcohol. Indeed, we were penal system has been transferred to sentenced to labor camps. There are, in told that 30-40 percent of crimes regional authorities in the 15 republics of addition, a small number of facilities, committed in the SOViet Union are the U.S.S.R. Whereas in the past there perhaps no more than six, that the Soviets alcohol-related. were 1,000 officials at the Central label "prisons." The prisons are reserved Department Headquarters in Moscow, for the most serious offenses and difficult According to Minister Bakatin, the there remain only 148. offenders. Prisoners there are housed in climate in the labor camps and prisons cellblocks, and the regimen is harsher has deteriorated since the release of Prisoners in the Soviet Union are than in the labor camps. nonviolent offenders because only the assigned to labor camps and prisons by a most dangerous prisoners remain; The court in the Soviet Union, instead of 350,000 of the 761,000 Soviet prisoners 'The Department of Corrections is also responsible the Department of Corrections, deter­ are second- or third-time offenders. for the nation's mental hospitals, which have been mines a prisoner's classification, and it is much criticized by human rights groups in the past, Accordingly, Soviet prisons are increas­ particularly with respect to the treatment of Soviet part of the sentence. The more severe the ingly difficult to administer. Yet the dissidents. offense, the more severe the regime. Ministry at the same time is anxious to proceed with its second stage of re­ forms-the humanization of the prison system, with a greater emphasis on reeducation and rehabilitation. Changes in prison administration '.'J he Soviet Union has a ::.:1 centralized legal system, L___ and all law is national law. Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union has no state governments, each with its own laws and administrative and political bodies, although reforms are moving in the direction of greater regional authority. Accordingly, there is U.S. delegation members with local officials and officials from the Ministly of internal Affairs. Left, Jack Eckerd; third from left, Elizabeth Fine,' center, J. Michael Quinlan; third from right, Margaret Love; secondfrom right, Charles W. Colson. Winter 1991 13 Repeat offenders are also likely to be Soviet Prisons-Usually appeared run-down and the physical placed in a more stringent regime. Soviet Humane, Sometimes Grim setting was rudimentary and grim. law provides for a maximum sentence of Nevertheless, there were clear indications Perm 29 15 years' confinement for any offense, that the facility was orderly and though a death sentence may also be ~--p erm 29 is a 34-year-old efficiently run. ~~. "strengthened regime" imposed. We were told that about 30 to rL_ labor camp in the Soviet 40 executions took place last year. Once The tour took us through educational region of Perm. The Perm region has 13 a prisoner is sentenced, the Department fJ'ti:ilities, where all inmates study to penal facilities: one educational colony of Corrections identifies the specific complete the 10 years of schooling for children; three women's colonies; a facility for the prisoner's sentence from required of all Soviet citizens, and where strict reinforced labor camp, Perm 35; among those in the specified regime. training in various trades was offered for two ordinary regime labor camps; four Policy favors placement of prisoners in prisoners who had no profession.