What changes to be introduced in conditions of serving sentences of restriction freedom and imprisonment?

The National Assembly is preparing to adopt a law "On amendments and additions to the Criminal Executive Code of the Republic of Belarus". Its adoption is expected to draw a line, among other things, under determining the duration of short-term visits provided for prisoners. These changes have been analyzed by Pavel Sapelka, an expert on the prison system and lawyer of the HRC "Viasna".

According to the Criminal Executive Code, persons sentenced to imprisonment are currently entitled to short visits of up to four hours; the wording establishes the prisoners’ complete dependence on the prison administration. There are no clear criteria for setting the duration of visits.

It is worth recalling that back in 2015 Interior Minister Ihar Shunevich proposed to curtail prison visits.

The bill provides that the short visit will last four hours. Thus, the arbitrary reduction of a visit will no longer be based on the law.

This decision will be important in terms of maintaining the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which provides that prisoners should be allowed to “communicate with their family and reputable friends at regular intervals, both by correspondence and by receiving visits”. “Special attention shall be paid to the maintenance and improvement of such relations between a prisoner and his family as are desirable in the best interests of both. From the beginning of a prisoner's sentence consideration shall be given to his future after release and he shall be encouraged and assisted to maintain or establish such relations with persons or agencies outside the institution as may promote the best interests of his family and his own social rehabilitation,” says the UN document.

However, these are the only privileges inmates of penal colonies and prisons can enjoy. As before, the prison administration has the right to deprive the convict of visits as a disciplinary sanction. New is the legislator’s idea ​to deny the possibility of short-term visits for convict for the period of their stay in the punishment cells (this earlier prevented long-term visits).

Juvenile prisoners will finally get the right to long visits with their close relatives: they may be granted up to four visits per year; the number of short-term visits has also been increased to eight times a year.

The bill also specifies the conditions of serving punishment by persons sentenced to restriction of freedom. In particular, by analogy with regular colonies, open-type penal facilities will be subdivided into colonies for persons who have not previously served a sentence of imprisonment and those for persons who have served a sentence of imprisonment. However, female convicts who have not previously served a sentence of imprisonment may be detained together with those who have served such sentences, however held in separate parts of the same facility.

Convicts serving a sentence of restriction of freedom in an open-type correctional facility are now prohibited to:

1) drink alcoholic, low alcohol drinks, beer, take drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues, toxic or other intoxicating substances;

2) visit places of sports and recreation, mass sports, cultural activities, casinos, shopping facilities, which allow drinking alcohol, soft drinks, beer, and the housing of other persons. The administration of an open-type correctional facility may allow a visit to the homes of close relatives in their free time or a day off not exceeding four hours;

3) refuse to work assigned by the administration of an open-type correctional facility, with the exception of convicts who have a permanent place of work at the place of serving punishment;

4) terminate an employment contract by mutual agreement or terminate it at their own request without the permission of the administration.

The following penalties may be currently applied to persons sentenced to restriction of freedom in an open-type correctional facility in case of violating the rules and conditions of serving the sentence: 1) reprimand; 2) extraordinary duty cleaning and beautifying the territory of an open-type correctional facility; 3) prohibition to leave the correctional facility at a certain time of the day for up to one month; 4) disciplinary isolation for up to ten days with an obligation or without an obligation to work (study). The bill provides for three types of penalties: the above list no longer prohibits to leave the correctional facility.

Summing up, it is difficult to give an unambiguous assessment of the bill. Some of its provisions are aimed at bringing prison conditions to generally accepted standards, however, they still fail to fully align the country’s penal legislation in accordance with European standards for prisons.