Those convicted in criminal cases are subject to distribution to correctional institutions, according to the measure of responsibility applied to them.
Until the court verdict comes into force or the documents are being appealed, the convicted persons are kept in pre-trial detention center.
They cannot stay in the isolation ward all the time; it is always overcrowded. Therefore, from time to time, convicts are transported to prisons.
In criminal law, this process is called the transfer of convicts. How the transfer from the pre-trial detention center to the colony occurs, and what requirements employees of executive institutions must comply with, we will talk further.
What is a stage in prison?
Conveyance is the forced transportation of convicts in criminal cases to colonies, prisons, and camps . This stage involves the entire journey of the convicted person from leaving the pre-trial detention center to arriving at the colony.
On this path, the prisoner will experience many new experiences: from long journeys in stuffy, windowless compartments to futile attempts to transport all his property at once.
The decision to transfer a convicted person to a specific colony is made by the management of the pre-trial detention center.
But before this, the pre-trial detention center receives an order from the central department of the Federal Penitentiary Service in Moscow, which indicates which colonies and how many places there are for convicts.
Due to the fact that in many colonies they serve time only for certain types of crimes, the distribution of convicts by pre-trial detention center employees is not an easy task.
In what situations is staging required?
In a broad sense, a stage is the path of a convicted person from point A to point B. And this path is not always associated with departure to a colony.
There are other situations in which a convicted person must be transported:
- Delivery of a convicted person to court who is in a pre-trial detention center under a decision to select a preventive measure in the form of detention.
- Delivery of a convicted person to court, where a new criminal case has been filed against him, if he is already serving a sentence for another crime in a colony. It often happens that a convicted person is sitting, for example, in a prison in Tatarstan, and a new criminal case against him is received at the court site in the Chelyabinsk region. In this case, the judge issues a transfer order and sends it to another region. Sometimes you have to wait months for someone to be convicted.
- Delivery of a convicted person to court for a decision to add sentences when the convicted person is already serving time in a colony for one of the crimes committed.
- Moving convicts from one colony to another in the event of emergencies, fires or riots.
One way or another, the penal system is always associated with various movements of convicts around the country . Our country is huge, which is why convicts sometimes travel for weeks or months.
How long the stage lasts is difficult to answer unequivocally. It all depends on the distance of the colony from the pre-trial detention center.
What is a Stolypin carriage (“vagonzak”)
It’s not easy to squeeze through the carriage with things. How difficult it is to fit into the cramped “glass” of a paddy wagon, or to jump out of a high van without steps - you can’t fall, you can get hit with a baton. The trunks generally get in the way. That is why it is not recommended to take a lot to the stage. Experienced inmates collect all their simple belongings in a sports bag - they can at least somehow travel with it through a travel agency called the Federal Penitentiary Service.
When transferring a person from convoy to convoy, the prisoners are checked with their personal files; they must accurately state their data - name, date of birth, charges, what court they were convicted of, term, start and end dates of the term. In general, inmates have to name all these “details” quite often – literally just barely.
How to prepare for the stage?
The exact time of transfer to the convict is not reported. Before departure, the cell is visited by an employee of the detention center, who calls the name and surname of the convicted person who must serve.
It is better to start preparing for the stage immediately after the verdict comes into force.
So, recommendations for preparing for the stage are as follows:
- Pack your things and food for the trip in advance. The convicted person has the right to take with him a bag weighing up to 50 kg. The main products that you will need on the road are tea and coffee, sugar and condensed milk, and instant noodles. On commuter trains transporting convicts, only boiling water will be served.
- It is better not to take bales that are too heavy for lifting, since at the end of the route in the new colony the convict will be given a heavy mattress. At the same time, you are given only one attempt to deliver your own belongings.
- According to the stage, it is better to settle in those carriages where one of the convicts’ acquaintances is present. All convicts are transported together without division into articles. Therefore, a convict sentenced to six months in prison can travel with a dangerous repeat offender.
- It is not recommended to eat or drink a lot before the stage. This is due to the fact that opportunities to go to the toilet will be strictly limited along the way.
- It is not recommended to take large quantities of SIM cards and cigarettes with you.
- Be sure to take a first aid kit with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs.
These instructions are advisory in nature. It is impossible to know for sure how the stage will go and how long the journey will take.
Ark for prisoners
- Stage
In this material we will return to the Stolypin cars discussed earlier. It must be said that Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, the famous minister and reformer of the times of Nicholas II, has only an indirect relation to the carriage that went down in history under his name. The carriage that, thanks to the efforts of Stolypin, ran along the Russian railway in 1906 was fundamentally different - solid, comfortable, somewhat reminiscent of a house on wheels. In the original “Stolypin” there were two compartments - a living compartment, equipped with sleeping shelves, tables, seats, easily opening windows to ventilate the room, a high-quality stove with a fair supply of firewood, sufficient for the entire journey. The second compartment was intended for agricultural equipment - seeders, harrows, plows and domestic animals, which the peasants decided to take with them. Of course, this carriage was of a lower class than a passenger one, but it was much better, more comfortable and convenient than the one that we know as a “heater”.
Procedure for transporting convicts
Sometimes convicts have to wait a long time for their turn at the prison. This is due to the fact that FSIN employees are trying to maximally staff the trains for sending convicts. No one will organize a stage for the sake of one criminal.
Before departure, a detailed search will be carried out in relation to the convict and his property.
Searches will, in principle, be carried out frequently, before and after each movement of the stage. The journey is carried out in special “carriages”. Convicts are transported to the railway in special vehicles.
Typically, convicts are taken to a transit prison, from which they are distributed to colonies. Sometimes transportation is carried out without the use of a transit prison.
At their final destination, convicts are quarantined for two weeks.
After the convict arrives in the colony, the administration is obliged to notify his relatives within 10 days.
How to find out where a convicted person is after transfer if the administration has not sent a notification?
In fact, according to the general rules, after the entry of the sentence and before the convict is sent to prison, he is granted one short-term visit with a relative.
And before sending a criminal to a correctional facility, the administration of the pre-trial detention center must also notify one relative about where the convicted person is going.
But even if none of the relatives received information about the route of the stage, they can clarify this information with a lawyer.
What is the secret of transferring
The prison phase often takes up to several months. For the family and the convicted person, such processes can be called a real test. Relatives do not receive information regarding his health and place of imprisonment, the citizen himself is deprived of contact with the outside world.
The European Court recently decided that a person's rights are violated if he is away from home for a long time. Being in remote regions creates problems when communicating with relatives.
They try not to disseminate information about this process or use the media. The secrecy of transportation is necessary to prevent all kinds of terrorist acts.
Rules for escorting suspects and accused
Suspects, as a rule, are escorted until trial, and accused are escorted one by one. Convoying in both cases is the rules for accompanying convicts, aimed at maintaining public safety.
The escort procedure is strictly regulated. Violating the rules for escorting convicts can sometimes lead to serious consequences.
It is worth at least remembering the episode with the shooting in a Moscow court, when a girl was escorting dangerous criminals, and the number of escorts did not correspond to the number of convicts.
Who does the escorting?
Convoying prisoners in 2021 is carried out by special departments of the internal affairs bodies. For this purpose, security and escort units are created.
Their tasks include:
- Assistance in the execution of punishment by delivering convicts to colonies, prisons, and isolation wards;
- Assisting in the administration of justice by delivering convicts to the courtroom;
- Protecting public safety from criminal;
- Protecting a criminal from an indignant public.
The composition of the convoy group is as follows:
- Chief of the convoy;
- Assistant Chief;
- Dog handler;
- Escorts.
The convoy can be regular or reinforced. The latter is used in cases where the protection of dangerous criminals is necessary.
In a normal escort, there are 2 guards for 1-2 criminals. With enhanced escorting, there are 3 escorts per 1 criminal.
Escorts always have main and alternate routes. The latter are needed in cases where there is a threat of escape or attack on the car.
Escort instructions
Reception of convicts for escort is carried out one at a time in a room where only the convict and the guards are present.
The criminal is subjected to a mandatory search, and prohibited items are confiscated . The guards are required to enter all information about the convicted person into a special journal.
The search during escort is carried out by one person for every 5 convicts. There is always radio communication with the escort vehicle.
The delivery of convicted or suspects to the courts must be agreed in advance with the detention center staff . To do this, a request for the delivery of a particular person held in this institution is sent to the pre-trial detention center.
The request indicates the time and date when the court hearing will take place, the name of the judge considering his case, and is certified by a seal.
Without a properly formalized request for the delivery of a convicted person or suspect, escort will not be carried out.
In the morning, the convoy collects a group of convicts who need to be taken to the courts and transports them. Courts, as a rule, have special closed rooms, the entrance to which is set separately from the main one. It is there that the convicts are brought by a convoy vehicle.
The grounds for establishing a reinforced convoy are:
- Information about preparing for an escape;
- Information about an attack on security;
- Information about the suicide attempt of the convicted person;
- Long convoy routes;
- Geographical complexity of the convoy route;
- Carrying out convoys by air or water transport.
The convoy must be armed for security purposes . The convict is taken to the courtroom in handcuffs and taken to a cell. Once in the cell, handcuffs are removed through a special window, but not for all convicts.
At least one guard must always be present in court during the hearing.
As a rule, guards change and take turns sitting at the court hearing. Such convicts are always behind bars in the courtroom or in special glass boxes.
You can never know for sure that a convicted person or suspect is safe . There is always a risk of potential danger posed by the person being transported or escorted.
A stage is one of the stages of execution of a sentence, which consists of delivering the convicted person to the place where he will serve his assigned term. The transportation conditions are far from the best.
Convicts travel for weeks across the country in stuffy or cold carriages, without the opportunity to properly eat or wash themselves. This is one of the main tests that a convicted person must overcome at the stage of his correction.
Stage by plane
- Stage
Frozen prisoners from Kolyma were transported to the mainland by plane
It seems that just recently the main topic of discussion in the media was the topic of the so-called “CIA flying prisons.” In fact, we were talking about ordinary military transport aircraft of the American Air Force, which transferred people suspected of participating in the activities of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and the terrorist organization Al -Qaida" in Iraq. But in the United States, there is quite realistically another type of flying prison - airplanes for transporting criminals.
Obshchak
People constantly come up with all sorts of stories about the common fund. Rumors especially fly wild. Some say that you need to rent from $300, others that from $1000 and above. I want to dispel these rumors. In the central prison (pretrial detention center No. 1), women do not have a common fund. Maybe I will disappoint naive people, but I repeat - there is no common fund here and there never was.
In the pre-trial detention center there is a cell leader, but in the zone there is a squad leader. As a rule, they are women leaders who have and have earned authority. Basically, they live separately, have weight in the criminal world, “warm” both the men’s zone and the women’s zone (supplying them with money. - vb.kg).
Foreigners sit in separate huts. There is a special demand here for murder, rape and serious crimes. Everyone here knows who is in prison and for what.
All in chocolate
The rules for staying in a pre-trial detention center are simple. And the values here are different from those in the wild. Included in the price of a cigarette. They can be exchanged for products. I myself do not smoke, and I have never smoked. In principle, not everyone here smokes and not everyone drinks strong tea, like in the movies. Perhaps because women are a special contingent.
It is important for a woman to have hygiene items: soap, toothpaste, pads, underwear, and so on. Not everyone here has these things. Well, women have their own quirks. For example, you can give anything for candy or chocolate.
In cells measuring about 5 by 6 meters, you can do everything - cook food, wash, get a haircut, and so on. By the way, the fact that stabbing and cutting objects are prohibited in closed institutions is all a canard. I had everything - even nail scissors and nail polishes. True, all this needs to be hidden in a timely manner and it is advisable that none of the guards know about it. By the way, not all of them are honest before the law. It is no secret that some convicts can bring you anything they want from outside for a certain fee. For example, various goodies that are not available in the pre-trial detention center. The amount of payment varies greatly. The guards turn a blind eye to this. On the other hand, they can be understood, the salary is small, and the contingent is not the best.
The food here is quite edible, but few people eat it - mostly suckers. This is the law here - if you don’t put yourself out there, you will eat gruel yourself, and everything else is what your relatives give you from the outside. If you turn out to be a sucker, they will constantly charge you (demand - vb.kg) for money. There was one like this with us. Every day they handed her large bags of food not for one person, but for six, and we all ate from her dachas.
The best medicine is analgin
There is no talk about medical care here. They give analgin for all diseases. One day, my cellmate started having seizures; she didn’t have any pills. For about five minutes we knocked on the iron door of our hut to call the guard. He came, opened the door, looked and said: “Yes, she’s playing the fool, I’ve seen people like her more than once,” and left. The convulsions did not stop, we again started banging on the door. Only after the guard saw that the convulsions were not stopping did he call a doctor. She came, beat her a little on the cheeks, splashed water, and turned the girl on her side. When the patient calmed down, the doctor gave her a pill and left. She answered our questions: “He will live to see the wedding.”
We were taken out for a walk, or rather, to breathe fresh air in a room with a grill instead of a ceiling, about two or three times a week, although by law it was supposed to be every day. Several people go out to the “boom” at the same time. From above, armed officers of the pre-trial detention center are walking around the cage. The walk lasts approximately an hour. There, people under investigation or convicts talk to each other and get to know newcomers.
Checkered sky
Having crossed the threshold of the pre-trial detention center, I decided that my life was over. First, the convicted person is placed in so-called quarantine. It's like doctors. The camera is needed to prevent infectious diseases - so that no one from freedom brings any kind of infection.
Usually on the first day, new recruits are examined by a doctor or paramedic. Describes all tattoos and special features - scars, large birthmarks, deformities. If you were beaten or tortured, you need to tell the doctor about it, show bruises, abrasions, and complain about pain. Doctors must record everything.
Even in quarantine, they began to probe me - to check how strong I was in spirit. They found out if I had money, and if so, how much. If not, then you are told to get them, but where and how is not important. Before I got there, they told me: if you break, they will start loading you. I didn’t break down, so they didn’t bother loading me, although many girls fall for the tricks quite quickly and easily, and then can’t get rid of it.
I can tell you that quarantine provides for the administration to get to know the new prisoner. There is almost always an informer there. He listens to what the newly minted prisoners are talking about. Since people who came here for the first time are still in an incomprehensible state (they haven’t been convicted yet), they are talkative. Later, when a person gets used to it and comes to his senses, extracting the necessary information from him will be much more difficult than in the first days.
Later, I was assigned to a hut (cell - vb.kg), where six other women were imprisoned - for various crimes. I won’t say which ones exactly. I developed quite friendly relations with them. It was here that I realized that when a person ends up in a pre-trial detention center, in any case he needs to defend his position and know the rules.
I knew the rules because I had experience communicating with such a contingent - while still a student, I did an internship in a pre-trial detention center.
