According to the International Center of Investigation of Prisons at London King´s College, Belarus possesses one of the highest ratings on number of prisoners in Europe: 426 per 100 thousand population. Prisons are overcrowded, have extremely low sanitary level and there are serious threats to prisoners’ security including cases of physical violence and sexual abuse. (04-JUN-07)
Source: www.charter97.org
International assessment
Criminology Professor Nils Christi from the Oslo University (the author of the so-called alternative conception of punishment) states that the Belarusian indicator of convicts is 0.5% of the population and he considers it to be very high and the system of punishment to be outdated. By the way, the Norwegian indicator of the imprisoned is 61 per 100 thousand people.
The world prisons’ expert is sure that the capital punishment, which is valid in Belarus, ‘the only European country’, cannot lead to murders and other serious crimes decrease.
The same can be said about theft and robbery. The Norwegian professor sees much in common between the Russian and Belarusian penitentiary systems. Once upon a time, in the times of serfdom the prisons in those areas neither were nor overcrowded. Many serfs for disobeying their masters were guarded to the mines of Siberia. Later the serfdom was substituted by the Gulag. The decedents served their terms there. Now they are kept at isolation wards, which resemble torture chambers, side by side with the recidivists. The so-called ‘pressing’- forced testimony taking is common there.
Dependent Judges
According to the expert, ‘judges in both countries are totally dependent on the acting authorities, because it is the authorities that are the judges’ employers’. The criminologist considers that conviction in the Russian Federation and Belarus is overestimated. That is the reason of overcrowded isolation wards. Russian and Belarusian judges very seldom dare to justify defendants. Very often they return the cases to the public prosecutors’ offices. Until the cases are considered the defendants are kept in jail,’ the Norwegian professor is certain.
’Such outdated system of punishment doest not facilitate the prisoners improvement’, Nils Christi remarks.
Female jails’ conditions
Barbara Zaurich, a volunteer from Germany (i.e. a country with 91 prisoners per 100 thousand people) recalls her impressions of visiting Belarusian female jails.
’From the point of view of the Western societies it seems strange that for a petty crime you may be put behind the bars. In our country such actions are usually penalized. Many prisoners degenerate morally. It is difficult for them to integrate into the society after the release. That is a problem,’ Barbara Zaurich says.
The top ten of countries with the highest number of prisoners also contains Ukraine (345), Estonia (333). Latvia (292), Georgia (276), Moldova (247), Poland (239), Lithuania (235), Azerbaijan (202). The lowest rating by the number of prisoners belongs to Island. The highest rating in the world by the number of prisoners is assigned to the USA (over 700) and the lowest -to Australia (11).
