Rostov Region strengthens control of detention facilities

The Prosecutor's Office and the regional branch of the Penitentiary Service have stepped up their control over the detention facilities located in the Rostov Region. Local human rights activists mark changes for the better with observance of human rights in local prisons and jails.

As already reported by the "Caucasian Knot", the Prosecutor's Office of the Rostov Region started an off-scheduled check of observance of the legislation on rendering of proper health care to prisoners kept in the local establishments of the Chief Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service (known as GUFSIN), where mortality growth was fixed. Last year 39 prisoners died in local penal colonies; in the first 9 months of this year the count is already 44.

The check also assumes to examine the observance of sanitary area standards, material and everyday support of the prisoners who died in prisons, and due grounds for the procedural decisions made by inquiry bodies on all facts of prisoners' deaths.

"The results of this check will be known in December. However, there are already some conclusions of the prosecutors' of jails," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed at the press service of the Prosecutor's Office of the Rostov Region. "Thus, in SIZO-1 (pre-trial prison) of Rostov-on-Don, numerous violations were revealed of the existing labour legislation at organization of inmates' self-service: overtime and systematic absence of the right to rest."

With the advent of the new boss of the GUFSIN, detention facilities also began their internal audits. According to the latest data of the press service of the GUFSIN, since the start of 2010 11 criminal cases were opened against employees of the Department. "Thus, on suspicion of bribe-taking, the psychiatrist of the hospital of Colony No. 19 was detained, as well as the acting head of the operative division of Colony No. 20 in the city of Shakhty," runs the release of the press service of the GUFSIN.

Besides, this year the Russia's GUFSIN for the Rostov Region signed a cooperation agreement with the regional office of the human rights centre of the "World Russian People's Assembly".

"With the advent of the new boss, the situation with observance of prisoners' human rights has changed for the better," Vitold Abankin, a former political prisoner, a member of the public observation commission of the Rostov Region under the GUFSIN and director of Rostov-based public organization "Road to the Law", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "In summer I took part in searches held in colonies; and I want to note that no excesses were registered during the searches - everything was held within the bounds of the law and human rights. I had access to all the premises and could communicate freely with prisoners and custodial supervisors. In all the colonies, negative aspects in prisoners' everyday life were identified; and already on the following day the colonies began eliminating the revealed defects."

However, under all current improvements, noted by local rights defenders, as Mr Abankin has stressed, the Russian system of prisons in general, and in the Rostov Region, in particular, needs modernization. "We need to ensure that prisoners have individual cells and get care of duly qualified psychologists. Inmates should be given more freedom within the facility. Care should be given to those supervisors, who are recruited to work in colonies 'from the street.' First of all, they should be trained; and secondly, they should have higher wages," Vitold Abankin concluded.