“Noble acting of prison staff is a key point of our strategy. If there is no respect for human dignity, then there is no need to start a discussion on human rights. The best prisons are not those, where prisoners are able to communicate only with their fellow inmates and other prisoners (we call them ‘criminal universities’), but those, where the entire staff works directly and individually with the prisoners in order to eliminate interpersonal tension and hostility. This, eventually, leads to their successful reintegration into society,” said John TEASDALE at the International Conference “State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine: History, Present-day Situation, and Prospects in Light of International Prison Standards.”
The conference was held in honor of the 15th anniversary of the Penitentiary Service of Ukraine. Reports on the reform of the state penitentiary service and better management of penal institutions were presented by members of the Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe, representatives of the Ministry of Justice and the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, members of international (“PenalReformInternational”) and Ukrainian NGOs, as well as their colleagues from Russia, Belarus, Moldova, and Poland. Along with stressing the issues of modernization of prisons following European examples and unique example of Colony No. 35 in Bila Tserkva, the speakers repeatedly emphasized the need for change of ethical and psychological approaches for reducing recidivism. According to Serhii SYDORENKO, First Deputy Chairman of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, the solution to the problem may be the introduction of the institute of probations: “Today this issue receives more attention and the law on probation, which was submitted by our service and was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, has been already discussed in the relevant parliamentary committees. There is a good chance that it will be submitted for the Parliament’s consideration and will be approved this year. The primary task is to understand that re-socialization and the release of a prisoner should be supervised for today the recurrent crime rate is over 60 percent and the percentage of those reconvicted is more than 50. And it is a vicious circle, where we have to remember about both those, who cannot escape it and the victims.” By the way, the amount of uncompensated losses for the crime victims as of today is 500 million hryvnias.
