Is it possible to use cell phones in a penal colony?

- what it is? In the early 60s, correctional labor colonies and settlements appeared in the USSR, where convicts live and work in conditions close to free life.

The point of such institutions is that people convicted for the first time and for minor crimes can undergo correction under the supervision of special services, but without complete isolation from society. In the article we will look in detail at how they sit in a checkpoint - is it easy for convicts to live there, what are the conditions and features of the regime.

In touch with society: is there internet in prison and are phones allowed?

A search, or prison search, is carried out from one to several times a day. If a person serving a sentence is found to have a cell phone, it will be taken away.

Upon admission to the pre-trial detention center, the offender is subject to a search. During the search, the phone is taken away. They also take him away when he enters prison. In addition, in places of deprivation of liberty, prisoners are regularly searched.

Now do you know whether telephones are allowed in prison, and whether there is Internet in prison?

The Criminal Code prohibits all means of communication. They can also hide a cell phone in the anus . Before this, it is packaged, for example, in a condom. A criminal who finds himself in a pre-trial detention center with a cell phone can inform his accomplices about the progress of the investigation, confuse his tracks, and interfere with the investigation in other ways.

This is why cell phones are prohibited both in prisons and pre-trial detention centers.

Mobile freedom: is it easy for convicts to get a phone in a colony?

Every month we detain 3-4 people trying to deliver a phone. These are relatives who come for long visits. Although they understand the responsibility, this does not stop them. Most often, girls and wives and parents approach this more cautiously and still put the convicts on the path to reform. If we talk about the convicts themselves, then every month employees of the operational department detain them while trying to deliver them - at the fence.

— What punishment does the convicted person face for organizing the delivery?

Vladimir Palenov: “We seize about 100-150 devices every year” Photo: Inga KNIZHKINA - Very active. Can a settlement be transferred from a colony to a prison? As soon as we discover that a person is on a social network, he is placed under enhanced surveillance; all departments and services work on him. All employees of departments and services, educators, psychologists, carry out educational work with him, explain the illegality of such behavior.

The convicts know this. Today, convicts do not want close attention to themselves... The attacker tried to deliver the phones using a bow; photo: Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Vologda Region Medications that contain narcotic substances, alcohol, mobile phones, weapons and the like are prohibited. In general, it is better to first clarify the list of what is permissible and what is strictly prohibited with the administration of the penitentiary institution, so as not to inadvertently get a violation.

— How pressing is the problem of mobile phones in correctional institutions?

— There is order No. 72, which allows convicts to be placed on preventive registration. That is, these are persons who systematically violate. We register them and work with them. There are now about 200 such people.

— Every month we detain 3-4 people trying to deliver a phone. These are relatives who come for long visits.

Although they understand the responsibility, this does not stop them. Most often, girls and wives and parents approach this more cautiously and still put the convicts on the path to reform. If we talk about the convicts themselves, then every month employees of the operational department detain them while trying to deliver them - at the fence. The attacker tried to deliver the phones using a bow; photo: Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in the Vologda Region A man was detained twice this year; he used first a bow, then a crossbow to transfer. After the first time, they detained me and drew up a report on an administrative violation.

The man received a fine of 4 thousand rubles. The maximum penalty under this article is a fine of 5 thousand. But it does not pose a particular danger to citizens and convicts, because they promise a more substantial reward for delivery.

Rules for providing convicts with telephone or video conversations

One of the most terrible tests for convicts is separation from family and friends, as well as deprivation of the usual means of communication. Sometimes you have to forget about long conversations in instant messengers and social networks, video calls and other delights of civilization for many years.

Official Statements and Explanations

There is still a possibility for convicts to communicate with their relatives and friends, and it is spelled out in the same above-mentioned Internal Rules of the Penitentiary Commission. According to them, every convicted person has the right to a telephone conversation lasting no more than 15 minutes. If technical capabilities are available, video communication can also be provided. However, the number of permitted telephone and video conversations is not specified anywhere and is therefore unlimited .

To obtain permission to negotiate , you must submit a written application addressed to the head of the colony (IO or a person replacing him). It must indicate:

As a rule, a separate room is allocated for a “negotiation point”, and the right to negotiate is exercised during non-working hours.

Telephone calls can be paid for by the convicted person himself or by the subscriber (at his request). Convicts are still allowed to have telephone cards, but they must be kept by the administration representative on duty (the cards are signed and issued if there is permission to speak).

While the convict is in the colony, you will have to forget about the confidentiality of negotiations: the correctional officer has every right not only to be present at the communication session, but also to control its progress.

If the application specifies a language other than Russian, a translator is usually invited. There is no need to pay for his services (the state pays for it), but how quickly they will find an expert in the relevant language is unknown. Therefore, the majority of convicts prefer to communicate, albeit in broken, Russian (if the subscriber knows it, of course).

As a rule, upon arrival at the correctional facility, all convicts are allowed to contact their relatives (with the exception of regime violators during the detention period). However, violators and people held in cells (punishment isolation cells, PKT, EPKT) for other reasons, who under normal circumstances are deprived of the right to telephone communication, in exceptional cases can talk with their relatives.

It is allowed to communicate even with relatives staying in another colony. But God forbid that these “exceptional circumstances” should occur! Can the conversation be interrupted?

If you communicate on ordinary topics in Russian, the colony officer is unlikely to interrupt the conversation. The Rules clearly state the cases when a telephone conversation can be interrupted before the stated period has expired:

Please note that violating the rules of telephone conversations may lead to unpleasant consequences, for example, a tightening of the prisoner’s detention regime.

Incentives may be applied to convicted persons for good behavior (RF Penal Code Article 71):

Source

Is it allowed to call your relatives in a colony settlement?

Is it possible to somehow contact a person serving a sentence in a penal colony? My husband didn’t call back upon arrival and disappeared from the network as he was approaching the city. I really want to know if everything is okay with him and maybe he needs something

A telephone conversation, if technically possible, is provided by the head of the correctional institution, the person replacing him, or the person responsible for the correctional institution on weekends and holidays, upon a written application from the convicted person (clause 85 of Order of the Ministry of Justice of Russia dated December 16, 2016 No. 295)

The procedure for telephone conversations of persons sentenced to imprisonment is regulated by Art. 92 of the Criminal Executive Code of the Russian Federation and Order of the Ministry of Justice of Russia dated December 16, 2016 No. 295 “On approval of the internal regulations of correctional institutions. I recommend that you contact the administration of the correctional institution or the territorial department of the Federal Penitentiary Service. The use of cell phones in correctional facilities is prohibited. Is it possible to go home from the colony for the weekend? However, convicted persons have the right to telephone conversations in the manner prescribed by law. Those sentenced to imprisonment are given the right to telephone conversations. In the absence of technical capabilities, the administration of the correctional institution may limit the number of telephone conversations to six per year. The duration of each conversation should not exceed 15 minutes.

Telephone calls are paid for by convicted persons at their own expense or at the expense of their relatives or other persons (Article 92 of the Penal Code).

Conditions of detention

Convicts live in dormitories with several people per room. Living conditions can vary greatly depending on the colony , usually the rooms have: beds on a metal frame with a mattress, a personal bedside table for each resident, a wardrobe for outerwear, a desk, chairs, a cabinet or shelves for food, a mirror, lamps, etc. It is possible to have a TV and a refrigerator. As a rule, settlers visit the bathhouse once a week.

On the territory of the colony there must be:

Medical hospital.
Shop.
Bathhouse.
School.
Library.
Assembly Hall.
Rooms for receiving guests and sometimes hotels for them.

What are they?

Two types of colony-settlements are envisaged:

for persons who have committed a crime through negligence and have been sentenced to a term of no more than 5 years;
for positively characterized prisoners transferred from general and maximum security colonies.

Colonies can be male or female, or joint. There are also colonies for minors.

Read about how and where minors usually serve their sentences in Russia here.

Schedule

The daily routine depends on the internal regulations adopted in a particular colony . As a rule, it looks like this:

Get up no later than 5-6 am. This is followed by physical exercise for 15 minutes. Another 10-15 minutes are given for the toilet and filling the beds.
Morning check - up to 40 minutes.
Breakfast - 30 minutes.
The route to work and distribution of instructions is up to 1 hour.
Working hours are 8 hours in accordance with the law, but labor rights are often violated and working hours can reach 10-14 hours a day.
Lunch break - 30 minutes.
Returning from work takes about half an hour.
Dinner - 30 minutes.
Educational activities - up to one hour.
Free time - about an hour.
Getting ready for bed - 15 minutes.
Sleep - 8 hours.

Studying in educational institutions takes place according to a special schedule.

Nutrition

Each colony has a canteen, but the food served there leaves much to be desired. As a rule, these are porridges and soups made from cereals and substances resembling “compound fat”, which are classified as products of animal origin.

In the store you can buy your own products , such as: canned meat and fish, pickles (cucumbers and tomatoes), mixed vegetables, dairy products, cereals, pasta and instant noodles.

Dormitories may have kitchens. Depending on the administration's policy, stoves, kettles, pots and pans may be permitted for self-cooking.

An important place in the diet consists of products received through transmission from relatives.

More information about the nutrition of prisoners in the MLS can be found here.

Job

Colonies can be located near populated areas or right in the city. But more often they are found in the dense forests of the north and east of Russia.

In colonies remote from civilization, the choice of work is small : logging and woodworking are hard and dangerous work in unfavorable climatic conditions. It also happens that in such colonies there are much fewer jobs than there are colonists themselves, and in this case, work is a privilege that allows you to have a modest income and after some time count on parole.

In and around cities, work often involves tailoring. Also, with the permission of the administration, you can get a job in a locality nearby. It is unlikely that a convicted person will agree to be hired for a highly paid job, but this could be, for example, work in a factory, in the housing and communal services sector, in the agricultural sector or in the service sector. Since the uniform in the colony-settlement is loose, those around you may not understand that they are working together with the convict or receiving some kind of service from him.

Prisoners' labor rights are often violated:

convicts work 12 hours a day;
receive tiny salaries, from which payments for food and other services may be illegally collected;
convicts are forced to “sign 106th” - that is, agree to free work to improve the territory of the colony.

Convicts are afraid to defend their rights, because otherwise they will face penalties, including a punishment cell: it is enough to “receive two punishment cells” for the colony administration to have grounds for transferring the convict to a general regime colony or denying him parole. It is very difficult to defeat the colony administration in court , and weighing all the risks, the majority of convicts prefer to put up with the violation of their rights.

It happens that after arriving in the colony they offer an appointment to a good position for a certain amount of money. This practice of purchasing positions does exist in some colonies. However, you should not agree to this without knowing who you are dealing with: they may deceive you.

Studies

According to paragraph 4 of Article 129 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation, a convicted person has the right to receive secondary vocational and higher education, the form of education is correspondence. You can only enroll in educational institutions located in the same municipality as the colony.

Education is a good basis for incentives and subsequent parole , and the education received will be useful after release.

Entertainment and relaxation

In accordance with labor legislation, convicts are guaranteed an 8-hour working day and two days off, but these standards are often not respected, and colony residents do not have much free time.

Settlers have different options for spending their leisure time:

On the territory of the colony there is a library and an assembly hall. There may also be a cinema and TV rooms.
Various games are popular, such as backgammon, as well as card games, despite their formal ban.
In case of good relations with the administration, it is possible to visit a nearby settlement.
On holidays, it is customary to organize feasts, eating products received from the transfers. Sometimes settlers manage to smuggle in alcohol or buy it from the wardens. Some settlers even make mash on the territory of the colony, constructing ingenious hiding places for this.

Religion

The colonies are periodically visited by priests, and some even have chapels built ; in regions with a Muslim population, mosques can be found in the colonies. But problems may arise with performing namaz: although, according to the law, the colony administration does not have the right to interfere with religious rituals, in practice, strict adherence to the generally accepted regime is more important for the administration.

Dates and visits

Visits are an important part of a prisoner's life to maintain morale.

Settlers have the right to have visits without limiting their number. Small hotels for visiting relatives may be located on the territory of the settlement.

There is no limit on the number of dates only in KP. You can find out how short-term visits are conducted in institutions with other regimes in this article, and here we talked about the conditions for obtaining and holding long-term meetings with prisoners.

Transfer of products and things

Residents of the colony have the right to receive parcels and money transfers in any quantity.

You will find more information about the rules for transfers to convicted persons in the MLS in a separate article.

Is it possible to wear long hair?

Women have the right to wear long hair , but many cut their hair short for convenience. It is not customary for men to wear long hair, although formal prohibitions or permissions depend on the internal regulations of the colony.

Using a mobile phone

Mobile phones are prohibited in all correctional institutions of the Russian Federation, which, however, does not prevent convicts from using them everywhere.

The severity of the ban depends on the policy of the administration , which in turn is caught between two fires: on the one hand, the storage and use of mobile phones is directly prohibited by law, on the other hand, if this ban is defended too harshly, convicts may begin to rebel, sabotage work and engage in sabotage.

As a rule, the administration builds a compromise policy in which periodic searches and seizures of mobile phones take place, but this does not happen very diligently and often, so settlers have the opportunity to use mobile phones, storing them in hiding places on the territory of the colony. Often the guards themselves are engaged in selling phones several times more than their retail price.

Is it possible to go home for the weekend?

The law states that convicts can leave the territory of the colony only “if it is necessary due to the nature of the work they perform or in connection with their studies,” that is, formally it is impossible to go home on the weekend . However, in many colonies it is possible to go home for the weekend if you have a good and trusting relationship with the leadership or for a certain amount of money.

At the same time, the law also states: “Convicts who do not commit violations of the established procedure for serving a sentence and who have families, by order of the head of the colony-settlement, may be allowed to live with their families in a rented or their own living space located within the boundaries of the colony-settlement or municipal entity , on whose territory the colony-settlement is located.”

Thus, if a convicted person’s house is located next to a colony, he has the opportunity to negotiate with the administration about living with his family.

Are hours allowed?

In a settlement colony it is allowed to wear a wristwatch, but in prisons and pre-trial detention centers - not.

How Russian prisons use the Internet and communications

Only 10% of all prisoners are women. Telephones are much less common in women's cells than in men's cells. After all, women are much more active in snitching on each other. Men, both free men and prisoners, very rarely start relationships with women behind bars. Ladies have nothing to gain from social networks and dating sites.

At the beginning of 2021, in a maximum security colony in the city of Rubtsovsk, Altai Territory, prisoners were allowed to regularly play games on X-Box consoles. Colony workers told reporters that each of the 260 prisoners is entitled to have fun in this way for 2 hours a week.

“Live, love, steal, walk, buy the whole world and then give it away! Always just remember one thing, don’t forget your lads!”

In 2014, in the Mozhaisk men's colony for minors, experimental training for the profession of “computer operator” was conducted. During the lessons, the boys learned how to use a mouse and keyboard, the basics of working with Windows, Word, Excel and Power Point.

Educators hope that it will be easier to get a job in an office with a criminal record than in production. There are dozens of communities on social networks and websites for prisoners and free people who want to find love among prisoners. In the vast majority of cases, free women start relationships there with male prisoners. It is very rarely the other way around.

Are there legal ways to transfer a cell phone?

A prisoner does not have the right to have a mobile phone, but he is allowed telephone communication with loved ones. This is stated in Article 17 of the Federal Law of July 15, 1995 N 103-FZ “On the detention of suspects and accused of committing crimes.” Naturally, subject to certain conditions.

Firstly , such a conversation is allowed only with written permission from the investigator in charge of the case (or the judge).
Secondly , if it is technically possible to implement it. The suspect (or accused) receives permission to make 1 call. Moreover, its time is strictly specified: no one will allow a person to conduct many hours of conversations “for life”. Moreover, there is a long line of people wanting to talk on the phone.

The prisoner is issued a permit, which states:

His personal information.
Subscriber numbers and addresses.

The permission is certified by the official seal and on the basis of this document the prisoner writes a statement in which he indicates the same data and the language in which the conversation will be conducted.

Conversations in which:

The prisoner threatens or insults someone, calls for violence, shows sexual attention, or swears.
Tries to transmit data that could interfere with the progress of the investigation, or information about the security system in the institution, data of guards, tricks when transferring prohibited items.

The conversation will also be interrupted if a citizen tries to speak a language other than the one he specified in his application. The fact that the conversation was terminated ahead of schedule is immediately reported to superiors, and the likelihood of it being resolved next time is very low.

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Prisoners serving time are not allowed to use many items that seem common to us in everyday life. According to the law, a person serving a sentence may not have much.

It is much easier to list permitted items than what is prohibited. In fact, everything is completely different.

People who find themselves in prison may have some bonuses from their release. Sometimes this even works to the advantage of prison workers. But, even in such situations, not all things are permissible for those serving a sentence. So, let's figure out whether they take away your phone in prison?

Read more: Vasiliev contacted the HR department for clarification

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