What can be sent to prison and what parcels will be rejected?

What is "transfer"?

This is a food, clothing or combined kit collected for transfer or forwarding to a pre-trial detention center, prison or colony to a person under investigation or convict.
Such a parcel received the name “transfer” according to the criminal tradition of awarding diminutive names for things, events, etc., associated with the criminal world or characteristic only of it.

The collection of donations is most often carried out by a relative who wants to support a loved one who is deprived of liberty. But it is not prohibited to send parcels from people who are not related to the recipient.

Let's now look at what is possible when transferring to prison, and what is absolutely not allowed. Watch the video about being sent to prison:

After the beatings - a riot

On April 10 last year, human rights activists reported that prisoners in maximum security penal colony No. 15 rebelled in Angarsk. Lawyer Svyatoslav Khromenkov published a video message on his YouTube channel from prisoner Anton Obalenichev, who told how he was beaten by the assistant director of the colony on duty.

“I opened up because of this, because this is not the first time the police have acted lawlessly,” says Obalenichev. The prisoner showed abrasions on his sides, one of his hands was bandaged and there were blood stains on it. “They strangled me. I don’t know how long this chaos can be tolerated,” the prisoner added.

Human rights activist Pavel Glushchenko clarified that on the same day, an employee beat the prisoner again, and then 17 more people cut their veins in protest.

“The colony rebelled. They set fire to something in the industrial zone and the duty station. The colony is cordoned off, the POC is not allowed in,” Glushchenko described the events of April 10.

The FSIN department for the Irkutsk region described the beginning of the conflict somewhat differently. The department claimed that on the evening of April 9, one of the “negatively characterized convicts” refused a search in the punishment cell, pushed the jailers and swore, calling other prisoners to “illegal actions.”

“Convicts from neighboring cells of the punishment cell broke the glass of the CCTV cameras and cut their forearms with fragments. During illegal actions, an employee of the institution was attacked,” the department reported. The Federal Penitentiary Service assured that after the conversation the prisoners stopped rioting, and the situation in the colony was “controlled.” At the same time, it became known that a case had been initiated under Part 3 of Article 321 of the Criminal Code (disorganization of the work of the colony).

“The next morning the head of the GUFSIN arrived, there was information that we had agreed, he promised not to touch anyone. And today at 6 p.m., hysterical calls [from relatives] started. We went there, but didn't get anywhere. What’s happening there is unknown,” this is how Oleg Antipenko, chairman of the PMC for the region, described the events of April 10 to Open Media.

As released prisoner Yevgeny Yurchenko later told Novaya Gazeta, after the convicts opened their veins on April 9, the situation began to escalate. Therefore, the head of IK-15, Andrei Vereshchak, recommended that the “supervisor of the camp” send the convicts to the barracks. According to Yurchenko, they obeyed and dispersed, but the next morning a state of emergency was declared in the colony and special forces from the Federal Penitentiary Service were brought in.

Yurchenko said that several hundred prisoners stood all day until dark in a special forces ring, and then a fire truck began pouring cold water on them. According to him, at that moment one of the convicts threw a stone at the car and clashes with the security forces began. Some of the prisoners barricaded themselves in the residential area; those remaining on the parade ground were brutally beaten by special forces.

Fire in colony No. 15 in Angarsk. Photo: Svyatoslav Khromenkov

“There is such noise, such screaming, everyone is screaming there. He shouted: “Mommy, help, please, they are killing us here,” the mother of one of the prisoners told Dozhd.

Two more videos were recorded by the convicts themselves. “Everything is opened here,” says a man in a robe in one of the videos. He says that special forces are “breaking through” to the prisoners to “continue beating.” Shouts of “Help!” can be heard in the background. A fire started in the colony, the glow of which could be seen far beyond the walls of the institution. According to human rights activist Antipenko, the entire industrial zone of the colony was burned down by fire.

On the same day, the GUFSIN for the Irkutsk region issued a second press release, which reported that “the situation in IK-15 is under control.” Baza wrote that one of the prisoners hanged himself on the gate of the colony and published a video of a human silhouette swaying against the backdrop of a blazing glow. On the morning of April 11, the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Irkutsk Region, Viktor Ignatenko, said that the body of a prisoner was found while clearing the rubble after a fire. “Sibir.Realii” wrote that his name was Maxim Dautov.

Fire service vehicles near correctional colony No. 15 in Angarsk on the morning of April 11, 2021. Photo: Kirill Shipitsin / RIA Novosti

Acceptable premises

Everything necessary to maintain health and basic hygiene, facilitating the establishment of the minimum comfort possible in prison conditions.

What can be sent in a parcel to prison? It is advisable to put in the transfer:

• personal items (toothpaste, a new brush and only a wooden comb, disposable machines, napkins, toilet paper, sanitary pads (for women), toilet soap, plastic or aluminum mugs, plates);
• warm clothes, a tracksuit, a change of clothes (in a pre-trial detention center) - unless prohibited, cotton socks and warm ones;
• literature for reading, classes, notebooks, pen (if allowed);
• tobacco products (sent even to non-smokers - cigarettes are the internal currency accepted for services by both inmates and guards);
• products.

IMPORTANT : The time of sending the parcel to prisons is determined by the management of the institution where the prisoner is located.

Watch the video to see how to collect a parcel for prison:

Several ways to transfer a transfer to a pre-trial detention center

three ways at your disposal that you can use to ensure that your loved one who is in prison receives the necessary things.

You
can go to the detention center in person .
Of course, you will have to stand in line there, and the journey may take a lot of time, considering that your relative can be located anywhere. also use postal services , but delivery time will increase and you will have to exclude products that could spoil on the road.

Just like sending a parcel to a pre-trial detention center by mail, you can send it using the Internet . Now this area has begun to actively develop; there are certain online stores that provide such a service as sending parcels to the zone.

They do not yet cooperate with all pre-trial detention centers, but the one you need may well be on the list. The advantage of this service is that the cost of their work is lower compared to travel costs, and delivery is faster than with our mail.

What products can be sent to prison?

With a long shelf life, do not require heat treatment or low temperature for storage, and have factory-made transparent packaging that cannot be used to create edged weapons.

What food items can be sent to prison? Products to be given to prisoners:

• packaged, instant (noodles, mashed potatoes, rice, buckwheat, oatmeal);
• for flavoring food (chicken broth cubes, sunflower oil - preferably homemade or olive oil, onions, garlic - improve the taste of prison food, provide vitamins, strengthen the immune system);
• tea (black, with small or medium leaves, good, but at a reasonable price), milk powder, citric acid for refreshing summer drinks, instant jelly;
• coffee (it’s easier to make a drink from instant, but natural is healthier - choose based on the recipient’s everyday capabilities);
• dry-cured sausage, but salted lard is better - it lasts longer, is more satisfying, healthier, and more affordable. Smoked lard and salted fish are allowed only in the cold season, but not in all institutions;
• from sweets, honey, condensed milk in soft packaging, caramel (all this can be added to food or consumed as dessert);
• butter (in small portions and only for transfer to pre-trial detention centers - a quickly perishable product). It is more rational to transfer ghee, rendered chicken fat;
• dried fruits that do not require special storage conditions are preferable to freshly picked fruits;
• You can transfer canned food, but in isolated cases - the containers will be opened during inspection and the contents will only go to the recipient if he has something to take away the unpacked product;
• bread (small quantity).

Here is the entire list of what products can be sent to prison.

IMPORTANT : Before packing the transfer, remove the products from the cardboard packaging, leaving the transparent plastic one. Place products without transparent original packaging in packaging bags and tie them, but not with a very intricate knot.

In order not to reveal instant noodles , it is better to buy it in the pussy at the pre-trial detention center - then the spices will reach the recipient.

Transfer viscous products in thick plastic containers, which will then be used as dishes.

The recipient will share the products received with some of his cellmates - if possible, take this fact into account when determining the volume of product to transfer.

Cigarettes, tea, and sweets replace money for prisoners and are never superfluous . When choosing a specific product, give preference to what is affordable - there is no need to chase the brand.

After the riot - torture

A week after the suppression of the riot, the regional department of the Investigative Committee opened two more criminal cases - about mass riots and disorganization of the colony's activities. “The main instigators and participants in the riots on the territory of IK-15 have already been identified; there are about two hundred of them,” the department asserted. The Federal Penitentiary Service also assured that they had identified the “customers” of the riot and “the main channels for organizing the riots.”

The victim in one of the cases was recognized as the head of the regional Federal Penitentiary Service Leonid Sagalakov, who was injured by a “fragment of a concrete curb”; in another, a senior operative of IK-15 named Parygin, wrote Sibir.Realii with reference to the case materials.

Hundreds of prisoners were taken from IK-15 and distributed to pre-trial detention centers in the region. In particular, they were sent to pre-trial detention center-1 in Irkutsk, pre-trial detention center-6 in Angarsk and IK-6 in Irkutsk. Even before the distribution, lawyers and relatives complained that they were not allowed to see the prisoners and were not given any information about them. Already in pre-trial detention center No. 1, lawyer Khusein Galaev, collaborating with Civic Assistance, was able to get to one of the prisoners, Khumaid Khaidaev, a suspect in the case of disorganizing the work of the colony. The defense lawyer said that his client was severely beaten and reported torture in the colony.

“In 23 years of working in the legal profession, I have never seen anything like this, there is no living space on it, it is all blue. The big toe of the left foot is broken, on the right foot, according to him, gangrene is already beginning. The index finger on the right hand is broken, the hand is blue,” said the lawyer. After that, under various pretexts, defense lawyers were no longer allowed into pre-trial detention center-1.

Irkutsk SIZO-1 has been known for many years as a “territory of torture”—a documentary film with that title was released back in 2011. In it, prisoners said that torture for the sake of confessions was “practically legalized” in the detention center. The heads of the Irkutsk regional departments of the Federal Penitentiary Service and the Investigative Committee then insisted that the information disseminated in the film was not confirmed. At the beginning of 2021, the sister of one of the accused in pre-trial detention center No. 1 said that her brother was tortured in the “press hut.” For example, the driver of the murdered model, Vladislav Marusov, and realtor Dmitry Yankhaev spoke about the beating in the detention center.

Human rights activist Oyub Titiev told Mediazona that other prisoners in pre-trial detention center No. 1 extracted a partial confession of guilt from Khaidaev under torture. Later, Titiev emphasizes, he refused to admit guilt. The last time the lawyer visited Khaidaev was in early February, until the agreement ended.

Dmitry Dmitriev, the lawyer of the same prisoner Obalenichev, who recorded the first video message from the rioting colony, also spoke about the fact that he was not allowed to see his client. According to him, Obalenichev was in the press hut, where prisoners collaborating with the administration extracted confessions from him. At the same time, journalists from the Rossiya 24 channel were able to talk to Obalenichev in the pre-trial detention center without any problems, calling him an “accomplice” of Khaidaev. In the story, the prisoner said that he was forced to record a video message: “I was dragged into a copter, let’s film that you are being beaten. What is said is not true. None of the employees beat me.”

Lawyer Dmitry Dmitriev told Mediazona that he was never able to fully defend Obolenichev, although he appealed the refusals to admit him to trial. “As far as I know, he was processed, and he gave absolutely absurd testimony,” says the lawyer.

“Sibir.Realii” and human rights activist Pavel Glushchenko said that dozens of relatives of prisoners could not find their loved ones and find out about their condition. The Federal Penitentiary Service did not provide any specific information or reported that the prisoners excluded them from the list of trusted representatives. Glushchenko clarified in a conversation with Mediazona that relatives could not obtain any information from one to eight months.

Human rights activist Vyacheslav Ivanets suggested back in May in a conversation with Sibir.Realii that “press activists throughout the region” are now torturing prisoners from the Angarsk colony who were beaten by security forces during the riot.

“Their task is to turn victims into accused, so that they admit: “Yes, we participated,” said Ivanets. “Maybe not everyone will become accused, maybe the Investigative Committee will decide that 50 people are enough, and the rest can simply be left as witnesses.”

At the end of February 2021, members of the Presidential Human Rights Council were simply not allowed into four correctional colonies in Irkutsk and Angarsk, where complaints of torture were received from prisoners. For example, in IK-6, members of the HRC wanted to meet with a prisoner who was on a hunger strike. However, a representative of the Federal Penitentiary Service said that this prisoner did not submit an official statement to start a hunger strike, so there is no reason for the visit. Members of the HRC were largely unable to get into those institutions where many complaints were received about the lack of medical care and shortages of medicines. Following a visit to Irkutsk correctional institutions, Igor Kalyapin noted that the Investigative Committee “reacted strangely” to reports of torture.

FSIN employees near correctional colony No. 15 in Angarsk on April 11, 2021. Photo: Kirill Shipitsin / RIA Novosti

What's not allowed?

We've sorted out what transfers can be sent to prison. The list of items prohibited for transfer includes all perishable products (milk, eggs, meat, yeast), requiring long-term cooking, and substances that cause any kind of intoxication.

Sugar may also be on the list of forbidden foods - seasoned prisoners use it to distill prohibited moonshine.

REFERENCE : If it is discovered that there is an attempt to transfer weapons, narcotic or toxic substances to a prisoner, a criminal case will be opened against the sender of the parcel.

How to send a parcel to prison by mail?

Like a regular parcel or parcel, but taking into account the ban on prisoners receiving certain items.

What can you send to prison? Transfers without weight restrictions are allowed:

• sick;
• seriously ill (with medical confirmation);
• minors;
• pregnant;
• prisoners kept with their children under 3 years old).

Prisoners and those awaiting sentencing are prohibited from sending:

• devices for receiving, storing, exchanging information;
• any types of weapons, lighters, matches, watches, optical instruments;
• any products containing alcohol;
• electrical appliances (except razors and boilers);
• pornographic materials.