Correctional legislation and legislation on detention: blueprint for reform

   From 2020–2023 International Relations publishing house published several works on the different aspects of reforming criminal and criminal procedural law. In 2024 a monograph entitled ‘Criminal law and criminal procedure: draft reforms’, was published. Its authors summarized earlier proposals on that matter and formulated a number of new ones.

However, the reform indicated would have been incomplete without harmonizing the laws and regulations on the execution of penalties, and also legislation regulating the detention conditions of suspects and convicts who have had the preventetive measure of detention chosen for them.

This work examines the main issues connected to safeguarding the rights of the accused and those under pre-trial restraint. One of them is connected to confinement conditions, which at the moment are not satisfactory. Another problem can be seen in the excess regulation in legal acts of all parts of convicts’ lives, which, as the legal practice cited in this work shows, creates formal conditions encouraging nitpicking at the slightest pretext, and calls for disciplinary measures to be taken. Thus, individuals serving sentences or those detained, fall into total dependence of the judgement of the institutional administration executing the punishment, and the detention facilities.

The solution to these problems is seen in the humanization of criminal executive legislation and the legislation on detention conditions, the removal of unreasonable restrictions and constraints, the non-compliance with which creates artificial reasons for a decline in the conditions of those convicted and those on trial.

The authors suggest renouncing the stipulated aim of the UIK RF on the correction of the convicted as unrealistic and replacing it with the more pragmatic aim of ensuring the lawful behaviour of convicts. Firstly, this enables the formalization of criteria describing such behaviour, thereby decreasing the margin of discretion of the institutional administration executing the punishment, and that of courts in deciding on matters of release on parole, replacing the former punishment by a more lenient punishment, transferring to more lenient conditions etc. Secondly it allows to decrease the exorbitant expense of maintaining the penal system, which continues to be one of the highest expenses in the world.

Ensuring the lawful behaviour of convicts in practice is connected to assisting them receive an education, lifting restrictions on them receiving higher education, and offering them the possibility to make use of legal information.

Taking into account the limited resources necessary to improve the detention conditions of convicts, it is suggested that reforming the corresponding legislation is done in such a way that does not require the procurement of additional budgetary funds.

Most notably, there is a plan underway to remove all restrictions connected to the quantity and frequency of parcels and deliveries that convicts are allowed to receive, and those connected to the amount and sources of monetary funds that can be spent on food and basic necessities.

Particular attention has been given to ensure that those convicted or in detention for economic crimes have the possibility to continue their entrepreneurial activities, thus allowing them to keep their business, work spaces and taxes in order. Inteded for a wide circle of readers. It may be used as a textbook for teachers and students in law schools.