MOSCOW, June 19 /ITAR-TASS/. Inmates are people in need of help, a senior official at the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily, unveiling details of an experiment launched by the service to create fundamentally new conditions for inmates.
A total of 556,000 people serve their prison terms at penal colonies in Russia and more than half of them are persistent offenders, said Lieutenant-General Anatoly Rudyu, FSIN’s deputy director.
In order to reverse this stable trend, the so-called reformation centers will be opened at penal colonies, where specialists will try to find personal approach to any inmate. The experiment has already been launched at five penal colonies of different types. In the republics of Komi and Bashkortostan it is carried out at maximum security penal colonies for people who already had criminal records. Two penal colonies have joined the experiment in the Far Eastern Krasnoyarsk region, one of them being also a maximum security penal colony. Both have inmates serving their first prison term. Besides, this experiment has been started at a women’s penal colony in the Siberian Irkutsk region.
The heads of these centers will be directly subordinated to penal colony leadership. Officers currently serving at labor adaptation centers will work directly with inmates. “We see labor at prisons not as commerce, but as one of components of inmate’s correction, his or her socialization,” Rudyi said. “They make money that they could live on after leaving the prison. Besides, having earned money, inmates can pay on claims under the lawsuit to complainants. While the profession they get will help them find a job after discharge. That is why, specialists in workplace management will motivate inmates to work and obtain profession for their own sake,” the deputy director said.
The centre has the task of preparing inmates for discharge from prison, including the issuing of documents, assistance in job placement, etc. “We must try to see to it that when a person is discharged from prison it is social services capable to find a job and a place to live meet the inmate rather than police agencies. The main reason behind repeat crimes is social exclusion. The society, as a rule, is not ready to welcome a former inmate,” and as a rule, a huge number of former inmates sooner or later get back in jail, Rudyi said.
g at labor adaptation centers will work directly with inmates. “We see labor at prisons not as commerce, but as one of components of inmate’s correction, his or her socialization,” Rudyi said. “They make money that they could live on after leaving the prison. Besides, having earned money, inmates can pay on claims under the lawsuit to complainants. While the profession they get will help them find a job after discharge. That is why, specialists in workplace management will motivate inmates to work and obtain profession for their own sake,” the deputy director said.
The centre has the task of preparing inmates for discharge from prison, including the issuing of documents, assistance in job placement, etc. “We must try to see to it that when a person is discharged from prison it is social services capable to find a job and a place to live meet the inmate rather than police agencies. The main reason behind repeat crimes is social exclusion. The society, as a rule, is not ready to welcome a former inmate,” and as a rule, a huge number of former inmates sooner or later get back in jail, Rudyi said.