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Billy Popelaski Corrections
March 22nd, 2016 Applin
Countries have different ways of approaching how to minimize crime through their
correctional system. Russia is a very interesting case, as the country shifted from communism to
a democracy, their prison system changed as well. Similar to the United States, Russia is in the
top three of the highest prison populations in the world. This means prisons overcrowding is a
major issue. Although, the United States is known to have a strict correctional system, Russia’s
correctional system still lags behind which results in harsher methods. Nevertheless, being strict
doesn’t always mean that inmates will obey and rehabilitate as planned.
Before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the penal system was described as harsh,
inhumane, and a place of oppression. This penal system came in the form of the Gulag “The
acronym “Gulag” stands for Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel'notrudovykh lagerei i kolonii, or the
Main Administration of Corrective-Labor Camps and Colonie” (Kritika, 2015:470). The Gulag
were Joseph Stalin’s labor camps that housed a wide range of convicts ranging from petty
criminals to political prisoners. The prisoners were forced to endure 14 hour work days with
excruciating labor under terrible working conditions. Prisoners would usually cut trees down or
dig at frozen ground with lousy pickaxes, while others would mine coal or copper by hand. This
would often result in the prisoners suffering from painful and fatal lung diseases due to
inhalation of ore dust. Prisoners were also barely fed enough to sustain such difficult labor.
(Shalamov, 2016: 3). The prisoners were seen as worthless in the eyes of the officers, which
explains why the prisoners were so malnourished and still forced to work. Prisoners were seen as
replaceable since the system at the time was constantly placing prisoners in these labor camps.
Stalin’s Gulag sounds very similar to Hitler’s concentration camps; however the main purpose

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wasn’t to kill the prisoners like the concentration camps. The Gulag’s purpose was intended to be
a punishment and deterrence against disobedience. Unlike concentration camps, the Gulag camps
didn’t close down when World War II ended. Rather, the Gulag’s end came three weeks after
Stalin’s death “On March 27, 1953, Soviet authorities declared a wide amnesty, under which
over 1.2 million prisoners were released from the camps and colonies” (Barnes, Anthony, 2011:
205).
Although, the Gulag was a horrendous and cruel form of deterrence, it helped pave the
way for the corrections system that Russia has today. Some of these changes include “improved
prisoners’ living conditions (by establishing new norms for the provision of space, visiting
regimes, food, and hygiene), and introduced symbolic changes, such as addressing prisoners by
name, not number, dropping the word “labor” from the title of penal institutions, and renaming
industrial plants where prisoners still put in 8-12-hour days “(Kritika, 2015: 707). As shown,
human rights were a main deprivation of the gulag. By addressing someone by a number, and not
their name makes them sound like a test subject and not a human. Although, the prisons rules
have changed the physical appearance of the prisons have changed very little compared to the
appearance of the Gulag camps (Piacentini, 2004: 133). Collectively all of these new features of
the Russian correctional system were concerned with humanizing offenders which helped make
achieving rehabilitation and reintegration an easier process.
Today, Russia’s penal code, which is composed of six principles, helps explain why some
are incarcerated and why others are not. These principles state: "‘Wrongs’ are the results of long
centuries of acculturation in a capitalistic society; some individuals are unable to adapt their
habits to a new social order of things, others can more easily form a new habit-pattern and thus
can adapt themselves to a new order of things, the purpose of "punishment" is to protect society.

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Society should attempt to change the attitude of "wrongdoers" by every method know to modern
pedagogical and medical science and lastly those who cannot be "reformed" should be "isolated"
from society for its protection” (Gillin, 1933: 301). This penal code heavily shows resemblance
to the goals of the United States correctional system which are: rehabilitation, deterrence,
reintegration, retribution, incapacitation and restoration. There is however, conflict between
these correctional goals, in Russia’s case the goals of productivity and rehabilitation often
collide. The goal-conflict occurs “within a system where, for all the declarations of policy, the
inmate frequently receives extremely little or no compensation for his work, due to the operation
of the rules rather than to any abuse of them” (Connor, 1972: 376). The correctional officers
supervising the inmates during work hours don’t commend the inmates on their job, and to make
it even worse the inmates feel like they are working for nothing. It’s estimated that inmates get
paid 50% less than a job done outside of prison (Connor, 1972: 376). To make matters worse, the
pay the inmates do receive usually goes right back out of their pocket to income taxes, clothing
and food. This could result in feelings of worthlessness, hostility, and stagnation.
As previously mentioned, the goals of rehabilitation and reintegration aren’t always
effective as originally planned. For instance, “The ‘serious’ first offenders, sent to intensified-
regime, generally “repeat” at a lower rate than the more petty first timers sent to general regime
colonies” (Connor, 1972: 384). Serious crimes in Russia are categorized as assault, murder,
arson etc. The more serious of a crime you commit, the more likely you suffer from a mental
health problem. This is why many of these offenders can’t rehabilitate properly, which explains
why even if they are released from prison, they return to committing crime.
The Butyrka prison located in central Moscow in Russia is infamous regarding the issue
of overcrowding. The capacity of this prison is estimated to hold 3,500 prisoners; however

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during an international conference on prison reform, the group was told the prison had 5,200
prisoners. This is a 1,700 person difference from the estimated capacity of the prison. The
Butyrka prison cells “under the law can house 28 people (2.5 square meters per person), now
hold 90, 100, or even 110 prisoners” (Stern, 1996: 8). Therefore each individual in a cell had an
average space of 0.9 meters to themselves. When officers needed to reach a specific prisoner,
they had to push through a crowd that was said to be similar to a bus during rush hour (Stern,
1996: 9). Therefore, due to the lack personal space, there was no room for all of them to sleep at
once. With this, the prisoners had to often make decisions on who would get to sleep at what
time. Surprisingly during Stalin’s reign the Gulag prison cells were hardly overcrowded, and
although the food and medicine situation was bad, it wasn’t as extreme as Butyrka was.
With a lack of medicine and supplies, death due to starvation and illness was very
common, especially since “after five minutes of staying in such a cell visitors felt faint” (Stern,
1996: 8) it could only be imagined what the inmates felt like. Some of the sicknesses that were
common due to overcrowding were lice, mange, and tuberculosis. All such illnesses were equally
as contagious and spread from one person to the next due to overcrowding. The director of the
prison Colonel Gennadi Nikolayevich Oreshkin, openly admitted during a press release that
“Every day I plead with God for bad weather, because when it is too hot, epidemics and deaths
are unavoidable.” Even if the prison had a surplus of medicine it couldn’t remedy the severe
effects of overcrowding. He also mentioned that “his prison was so overcrowded that prisoners
routinely collapsed from lack of oxygen or swollen legs. Prisoners look forward to interrogation
sessions because they can catch a few minutes sleep” (Stern, 1996: 8). It could be implied that
prisoners looked forward to work or any other activity that involved getting out of that cramped
cell.

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One key element to fixing overcrowding of prison is probation. Probation was introduced
to the Russian Federation in 2007. Once it was introduced, probation officers had to undergo a
year-long training program in St. Petersburg. This program’s purpose was to “offer methods of
working with offenders which officers might be able to use and evaluate in the context of their
own practice. Over an initial five days, core methods of communication, engagement,
motivation, assessment and intervention were introduced with case examples” (Harding, 2011:
358). It’s important to realize how long and rigorous the training was to become a probation
officer; it shows the government really cares about the treatment and rehabilitation of the
offenders. Offenders are tricky, one must know all tactics in how to prevent future usage of
substances, and desire to commit more crimes. As probation continues to prove successful in
Russia, it’s hoped that it will soon flourish and save thousands from the tribulations of being
incarcerated.
The concept of trial and error is a great example regarding how Russians learned from the
monstrosities of Joseph Stalin’s Gulag camps. It helped reinforce the importance of the goals of
corrections such as rehabilitation and reintegration into society. One major issue that lingers in
the Russian prison system is the issue of overcrowding. Since overcrowding proved to be such
disaster, it helped pave the way for probation. Although probation is relatively new in Russia, it
will help countless of offenders and help diminish overcrowding of prisons. The country of
Russia may have had a slow start getting up to date with all of the correctional aspects of the
United States, but they are getting there.

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Works Cited
Barnes, S. A. (2011). Death and Redemption : The Gulag and the Shaping of Soviet Society.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Connor, W. D. (1972). THE SOVIET CRIMINAL CORRECTION SYSTEM: CHANGE AND
STABILITY. Law & Society Review, 6(3), 367-391.
John L. Gillin, Russia's Criminal Court and Penal System, 24 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 290
(1933).
Harding, J., & Davies, K. (2011). Step by steppe - progressing probation in
Russia. Probation Journal, 58(4), 355-363. doi:10.1177/0264550511421586
Piacentini, L. (2004). Penal identities in Russian prison colonies. Punishment & Society, 6(2),
131-147.
Shalamov, V. (n.d.). Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom.
Retrieved March 15, 2016, from
http://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/living.php
http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol24/iss1/20
Stern, V. (1996). Mass incarceration: 'a sin against the future'?. European Journal On Criminal
Policy & Research, 4(3), 7-25.