Under the criminal executive legislation of Russia, juvenile convicts receive a sentence separately from adults in educational colonies. This situation excludes the negative influence of experienced criminals on the unformed personality of a minor convict. The educational colony is a center in which a huge mass of under-age teenagers with non-standard forms of behavior is gathered. For the proper development and normal functioning of the teenage psyche, a department of psychological service is created in the institution.
Tasks of psychologists of an educational institution
The unit provides a stable moral climate in the colony, helping to correct juveniles. The psychological service solves the following tasks:
- provides the necessary psychological assistance to adolescents to live in prison;
- renders and corrects the pedagogical effect on the teenager who committed the crime;
- psychologically prepares a minor for subsequent rehabilitation in society after leaving the colony;
- provides teaching and service personnel with the necessary knowledge so that convicts serving sentences in educational colonies do not provoke conflicts.
Features of criminal case management of adolescents
Aspects of responsibility of adolescents under the age of majority are described in the 17th chapter of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Persons with the citizenship of Russia, other countries and stateless persons who at the time of the crime of the law have a full 14 years, but have not reached 18 years, are considered minors.
If a teenager engages in criminal activity under pressure from an adult, the latter is responsible to the court for incitement and complicity. A teenager who has shown his own initiative in a crime is fully accountable to the law for complicity.
The specific conditions for assessing a juvenile's crime determine a special approach in assessing a person in subsequent relapses. If there are any, then violations of the law committed under the age of 18 are not taken into account. The juvenile delinquency is considered a mitigating factor for determining the punishment.
Historical facts of punishment of minors
For the first time, accountability of teenagers in Russia was mentioned in 1715, but Catherine II officially fixed the age from which children were allowed to be punished in 1765. The decree prescribed to punish children from 10 to 17 years old only for certain violations of the law. In 1845, a document was issued defining the punishment for the category of adolescents of this age for intentional crimes. Adults are punished for such violations more severely, and juveniles are exiled, awarded with lashes and given for education in monasteries.
At the end of 1866, the emperor of Russia issued a decree on the establishment of colonies and shelters for the moral correction of juvenile offenders. Funds for institutions are allocated from their budget and are accepted from trustees and private individuals, an amount equal to the content of an adult criminal is calculated for the residence of each pupil.The law of the new Soviet leadership in 1918 abolishes the imprisonment of adolescents and creates an entirely new type of educational institutions.
In 1935, a department of labor colonies was created to guide and coordinate the activities of educational homes. 1956 is characterized by the creation of new provisions on labor and children's colonies. The category of institutions with a strict regime is allocated, where malicious juvenile offenders are held. In 1968, the Decree of the Presidium determines the procedure for regulating children's reception centers and dispensers. Nowadays, the department of educational institutions is in the management structure for working with convicts.
Measures for minors
The following measures of influence are applied to juvenile violators of the law in the framework of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation:
- convicted minors serving sentences in an educational colony are exempted from criminal punishment using compulsory educational measures;
- juvenile offenders are subject to criminal penalties;
- adolescents are released from punishment and placed in closed special educational institutions.
Execution and serving a sentence
The set of actions of the colony administration to ensure the supervision and protection of convicted adolescents, identify prohibited items through searches, organize a regime, and monitor the execution of the routine is called the execution regime. This includes the provision of work for convicts, study time, leisure and recreation, ensuring normal living conditions, visits, receiving news from relatives, parcels, and buying food.
Serving a sentence determines the schedule of residence, work, educational process, rest of adolescents in a closed type educational institution. The concept includes the conditions for serving a sentence within the framework of binding standard rules that determine the behavior of juvenile delinquents.
Four requirements system modes
According to the law, the conditions for serving sentences in educational colonies allow receiving punishment there for juvenile offenders sentenced to prison terms. In addition to this category, the walls of the correctional institution contain persons left in the colony until the age of 19 years. The educational colony creates separate zones that exist as strict regime correctional facilities for those prisoners who have reached 18 years in the process of serving their sentences. If it is not possible to create such a site, then the convicts are transferred to the colony on general terms.
Serving of punishment by boys and girls is carried out within the framework of the usual, preferential, facilitated and strict conditions determined by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Normal serving time
Juvenile offenders held in the colony on a regular basis live in dormitories. Inner order rules educational colonies prescribe that juvenile offenders observe public order outside the hostel, observe the regime of returning after work, notify the administration of arrival, present documents and a pass at the request of the police.
Residents do not leave the hostel at inopportune hours, during work do not leave the workplace. They are not allowed to take responsibility for the transfer of letters or transmissions to convicts, carry out their other assignments, transfer their documents and pass to anyone. It is allowed under the law to buy products and personal items in the amount of 4 thousand rubles. per month. Eight short visits and four lengthy meetings are allowed during the year.
The term in light conditions
Convicts who are assigned a regime of facilitated conditions to serve their sentences live in dormitories.An educational colony for minors permits to spend an amount of 6 thousand rubles for the purchase of products and personal hygiene products. per month. They are given 4 long dates a year and 12 more meetings for a short time.
Preferential treatment
Such minors convicted by permission and decision of the head of the colony are allowed to live in a dormitory outside the territory of the educational institution, but under the supervision of administrative workers. This popular measure allows the teenager to adapt before going free after the deadline.
Those who are serving sentences in preferential treatment in educational colonies use the amount that is on their accounts for products without restriction. A quota is not established for the number of short-term visits, long-term visits are limited to 6. The convicts make visits both within the colony and beyond its borders. Clothing is allowed to wear civilian clothing.
Strict Terms
For such juvenile teenagers, accommodation is provided in isolated rooms of a closed zone. The premises are locked with a key during unoccupied studies or work. Convicts buy food and personal belongings per month in the amount of 1 thousand rubles, only short-term visits are allowed, no more than 6 times a year. Teenagers live in more benign conditions than in a correctional prison, where convicts are locked up for the whole time.
Colony serving regime change
The ability to change living conditions encourages prisoners to correct, and improves the efficiency of the educational process. Adolescents under the age of majority are serving sentences in educational colonies under normal conditions. Deliberate actions when committing a crime are punishable by detention in strict conditions, they also do with those who previously served their sentences.
The term of detention of a convicted person in the ordinary regime shall be considered from the first day of his detention, if during the period of detention he did not commit violations that entailed placement in a punishment cell. When kept under strict conditions, the quarantine time is additionally taken into account on time.
An educational colony for minors involves the transition of adolescents from normal conditions of detention to a light regime, if the convict had no violations of detention, there are no penalties, he works hard and comprehends knowledge. The law establishes the following criteria to facilitate the regime of detention:
- for first-time convicted male adolescents, maintenance in the colony is 3 months of correction in normal conditions;
- re-convicted male adolescents go into light mode after living for 6 months;
- for convicted women for the first and second time, women are required to serve a sentence of 3 months.
Those juvenile convicts who are in lightened conditions of detention are transferred to preferential treatment with the aim of the preparatory stage for release from the educational colony. The tasks of the educational colony at this stage boil down to facilitating the infusion of the teenager into the social strata of society. The law does not define specific conditions for the transfer of convicted adolescents to conditions of preferential detention; they usually apply the same requirements for the previous transition. Terms of translation are not indicated in the law, decisions are made by the administration of the colony.
Since the maintenance of a convicted person in a preferential regime means living in a hostel outside the territory of the colony, the desire of a minor teenager to correct is persistent, it is assumed that keeping him outside the walls of the colony will not cause any harm to others.If serving a sentence in educational colonies is accompanied by a series of violations, then the convict is transferred to a more strict category of detention.
Categories of malicious abuse
What does the law refer to violations during detention in an educational colony? It:
- the use of strong drinks or drugs, psychotropic drugs;
- hooligan actions;
- disobedience to administrative employees, insult, bodily harm;
- storage of prohibited items in the colony or their manufacture and distribution;
- disobedience regarding mandatory treatment measures prescribed by a judicial decision or medical board;
- organization of strikes, other acts of disobedience, direct participation in them;
- manifestation of non-traditional orientation, inducement of other convicts to similar actions;
- disobedience in the work environment, refusal to perform work.
Measures to encourage convicts
The purpose of educational colonies is to provide the teenager with the opportunity to improve and embark on the true path. A system of rewards is applied to convicts, which become a good incentive for normal behavior, successful study, work and personal development. For active and distinguished by positive growth dynamics minors are given the right to go to the cinema, cultural and entertainment events outside the colony walls, accompanied by employees.
Another important incentive is the provision of the right to walk with parents, guardians or other relatives outside the walls of the colony. An important factor in the correction of juvenile delinquents is the possibility of release before the term provided by the educational colony, and transfer to lighter conditions.
Features of the application of incentive measures
Granting convicts the right to leave the colony for the purpose of attending a cultural event accompanied by relatives or the administration is accompanied by the issuance of civilian clothing. Visiting community centers in the clothes of a correctional institution promotes the hostile attitude of others and causes the convicted adolescents to have a psychological state that negates the effect of educational measures for which educational colonies are intended.
Visiting cultural and sports events is carried out only in the daytime, which leads to a decrease in the temptations of a teenager to commit illegal violations in the dark. The maximum period of absence in the colony is for the convict no more than 8 hours. This time is calculated taking into account working time or study and the possibility of having a prolonged sleep at night.
Types of penalties applied to convicts
The educational colony not only provides incentives, but also applies penalties for underage teenagers for violating the procedure for staying in a correctional institution. Penalties are similar to those used in penal colonies:
- the convict is reprimanded;
- a minor shall be punished by deprivation of watching films for a period of one month (this does not apply to television);
- the offender is punished by a fine of two minimum wages, which entails a restriction on the purchase of products and personal hygiene items;
- the convicted person is placed in an isolation ward, the length of stay in which depends on the severity of the violation, punishment is usually carried out within seven days, and a conclusion is made to study.
Features of educational institutions
The history of educational colonies has many changes in terms of development. Today, scientists from the VK VKIN department of the Ministry of Justice of Russia are working on this. To increase the effectiveness of correctional and educational work, the creation of a single type of correctional facility for the maintenance of underage teenagers male and female in separate rooms.
This principle is laid down in Russian law to differentiate the execution of sentences, which states that minors and adults, men and women are held separately when serving sentences. The same requirement for the maintenance of prisoners is voiced in international standards for serving sentences.
Separation of adults and adolescents when serving sentences is provided by an educational colony. The serving of minors separated from adult criminals provides protection from the negative influence and attitude of inveterate criminals with their psychological deviations. This type of separate placement is characterized by the connection to educational work with adolescents of public organizations, parents, this allows the convicted person to more fully use the rights to correction and restoration.
Correctional Center
The creation of an educational center sets its primary task to ensure the final cycle of work on the re-education of juvenile offenders. The educational center collects the results of the work of various categories of the executive-criminal system, for example, pre-trial detention centers, IK, VK. This body, by its appearance, will put a barrier on the further criminalization of a reeducated teenager and prevent the recurrence of violations of criminal practice.
Can educational colonies really re-educate teenagers? The educational center responds with the positive practice of corrected fates broken by criminal offenses and violations of the law at a young age. Problems arise in connection with the extension of detention in the colony of persons who have crossed the age of 18. This entails an increase in the number of convicts; there is a need to restructure the administration of the educational colony in connection with an increase in the age barrier of the contingent.
Adolescents who came to the colony for re-education were often deprived of social benefits in the past conditions of existence in the family. This is due to the upbringing of the child in difficult conditions at home unhealthy atmosphere. Parents do not care about young children, allow drunkenness, use drugs, arrange a showdown in front of a teenager, force them to carry out criminal orders and engage in criminal acts.
Learning sometimes becomes impossible in such asocial families. Lack of material resources due to the reluctance of parents to work and support themselves and children lead to malnutrition. Living in an educational correctional institution, a minor arranges his life in an appropriate manner, fills in the missing knowledge in the framework of the school curriculum, and acquires the skills of a profession. For the fragile teenage psyche, the advantages of an honest and calm life atmosphere are obvious, and pedagogical specialists and psychologists are happy to help people leave the precarious criminal path and build a normal human life.
As mentioned above, adolescents in the colony are changed to a easier regimen if they fulfill the requirements, the daily routine, study well and work fruitfully. Changing the status of the content to a more acceptable regime is an excellent incentive to correct and start a new life after leaving the educational colony.
