Sentenced to Life

SENTENCED TO LIFE

Communists and “patriots” in the Duma are clamoringfor the death penalty to be restored, which they hope will intimidateterrorists and killers. Meanwhile, the punishment meted out to former death-rowintimates, who had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, is moreterrible than execution, and not one of them is a terrorist or hired killer. 

At night, when theentire Vologdaregion is plunged into darkness, one of the islands in the middle of Lake Novoye commonly known as Ognenny, or Fiery, is ablaze with light. True, the source ofthis light is not fire, but electricity: powerful searchlights illuminate thewhite walls of a 15th-century monastery topped with barbed wire,armed guards peeping from under the roofs of monastery towers.

In the daytime theisland looks indistinguishable from scores of other inhabited islands in thearea. Nearby, children play, jumping from a planked footway into the water, andelderly people sit in front of their log cabins. It is just that the number ofservicemen in camouflage fatigues seems disproportionately large on the island,which is not really surprising: Ognenny is home to institution OE-265/5- thecountry’s first and largest penal colony for prisoners serving a life sentence,that is, people once sentenced to death who then had capital punishmentcommuted to life imprisonment on the island by presidential decree.
Abandon all hope. Quite. It is unlikely thatany of these men will ever be let out. Formally, they still can hope to befree. To this end they have to spend here 25 years, working conscientiously,and then, if a convict has had a clean record for the past 10 years, he may bereleased. For this to happen, however, approval has to be obtained from anumber of officials, including psychologists who monitor the convicts’ mentalstate and behavior. But it is highly improbable that any of these inmates willever get such approval- either now or in 25 years. Not because psychologists,like so many people in our society, detest lifers, convinced that no punishmentis too severe for them. It is simply that after 25 years of such life none ofthese wretches will probably be fit to lead a normal life at liberty.
“ As long as I’malive, I will not have any of them discharged, given the condition they are innow,” said a psychologist who requested anonymity. “If released, these men willnever be able to adapt to freedom. They will be left with no option but to reoffend and return here, to a familiar environment”.
Three days- and never again. The life of everynew arrival begins with a kind of initiation rite: as soon as he is out of thepaddy wagon, the new prisoner has to crawl to the island on his knees along aplanked footway, to the barking of leashed police dogs. The ceremony issupposed to produce a psychological effect: the man has to realize once and forall where he has got to and what will happen to him should he try to escape.Given that visits by relatives- the traditional “carrot” for prisoners- arebanned here, the prison administration can only resort to the “stick”: dogs,solitary confinement and clubs.
Visiting ended in1997, following the adoption of a new Criminal Code. Prior to that, liferscould see their relations for 3 days once a year, on a par with ordinaryconvicts. In 1997 the lawmakers chose to deprive them even of that small joy:let them suffer for 10 years. After 10 years, provided they have a good record,lifers are granted standard security status and allowed visitors.
“Before, theprospect of seeing a family member was an incentive for an inmate,” says VasilySmirnov, who has been working at the colony for 6 years. “In order to see theirmother or girlfriend, every prisoner took care to keep out of trouble and triedto work hard. No longer.”
Lawmakers imaginethey have given convicts a new incentive: if you behave for 10 years, you willget a chance to see your nearest and dearest. But 10 years is an eternity.During this time parents can die and even the most faithful of wives may nothold out for so long. I found myself agreeing with the prison psychologist:“Those who established these rules haven’t the slightest inkling of what it’slike to live in such a colony”.
Some might say thatthese people richly deserve it. But do we always have the right to pass suchhasty judgment? Among the island colony’s 150 inmates, there is not a singlehired killer. Persistent offenders who killed to rob, make up not more than10%. Most of the men here are “domestic criminals” who killed a relative or afriend in a violent quarrel, out of jealousy or simply because they were blinddrunk. True, there are some notable exceptions.
Alexander Biryukovkilled an officer when doing a stint of compulsory service in the army. He sayshe could no longer endure molestation by his homosexual superior. That failedto impress the court, however: Murder of an army officer is punishable bydeath. Then, under presidential decree, he had his sentence commuted to lifeimprisonment and was moved to this colony.
“We knew thatAlexander was not a criminal. After years of working here we have learned tounderstand who is who,” colony officials told me. So, when 2 years ago, hismother came to see Alexander for the last time, colony chief Alexei Rozovallowed Alexander Gutman, a St. Petersburg-based journalist, to film themeeting. The documentary was appropriately named “Three Days – and NeverAgain”: a 10-year separation could easily prove fatal for Biryukov’s elderlymother. When the film was shown in the colony, all women officers sobbed. As aresult, a presidential decree commuted Biryukov’s life sentence to a 15-yearterm.
“ They’re all cutthroats!” God alone knows what goes onin the minds and souls of these people. They have no one to confide in except afellow inmate or prison guards. Under such conditions, even the simple job ofmaking mittens in a workshop comes as a blessing: at least they can exchange afew words with a new person. But on the whole repentance or impertinence is theconvict’s own business: no one else cares about that. However, a local priestdoes come over sometimes. Recently, an envoy from the Patriarchate paid a visitbut left minutes after he started hearing confessions, yelling: “ they’re allcutthroats to a man!” True, journalists, mostly foreign, have been showinginterest of late.
Predisposition to Crime. We walk along the corridorsof a maximum security wing for lifers. Heavy metal doors with peepholes for theguards. Each door has a card with the convict’s name, photo and a brief desсriptionof the crime with an entry headed “Inclined to ...”: “attack guards”, “runaway”, and even “take hostages”. But most often it reads “ inclined to commitsuicide”.
“I cannot take anymore. It’s better to die”, convict Knyazev says, wearily surveying his cell.Several months ago Knyazev appealed to the president to have his death sentencecarried out. This is uncommon: usually in their letters to all judicialauthorities, including the European Court of Human Rights, convicts plead for mercy. They normally talk about their wish to die only with journalists to arouse compassion. And here, suddenly, a petition for death...
“You see, I grew upin an orphanage and never had anything I could call my own,” Knyazev explains.“Here, too, everything in this cell- the bed, the stool, the clothes- belong tothe state. I have only my life to dispose of but they do not let me disposeeven of my life”.
Knyazev has apoint: at Institution OE-265/5suicide constitutes a serious violation ofstanding regulations; a suicide attempt is fraught with a spell in the cooler.However, most inmates display a striking ability to hold on. Some even try toescape. The easiest way of doing that is through a special hospital in the townof Belozerskwhere lifers are taken for surgery. During a course of treatment, one Neudachinsentenced for killing a taxy driver was preparing to take his doctors hostage.Luckily, the guards soon caught on. As a result, Neudachin was put on trialagain, getting another 7 years in addition to his life sentence.
A Living Robot Factory. Although Neudachin’s is aspecial case( it is virtually impossible to escape from the island- what withan alarm system, barbed wire, 10 police dogs and the water around), prisonofficers are always ready for an emergency. The most difficult part is thateventually you start looking on the convicts not as criminals but as ordinarypeople – your acquaintances,” Smirnov says. “ But they can go off the rails atany moment.”
All precautionsprovided for under standing regulations are taken without fail: inmates mayonly leave their cells handcuffed; when going to a bath-house or to work, theremust be 2 guards per inmate or 3 guards for 2 inmates. Yet even the mostingenious security system cannot make up for the fact that lifers are entirelyunprepared to lead a normal life. And although the Criminal Code proclaimscorrection and social rehabilitation of convicts as the chief aim of ourpenitentiary system, in reality the Code doesn’t give them a chance. In the US thepsychopath who attacked and wounded Ronald Reagan in 1983 now spends most ofhis time at large, gradually adapting to society from which he was shut off fornearly 20 years. But inmates at Institution OE-265/5 are slowly turning intorobots who can only carry out orders and respond to nightsticks and the barkingof dogs.
The colonyadministration is not to blame. Quite the contrary, Col. Rozov , who has beenwith the Interior Ministry for 30 years, tries, at his own risk, to bring atleast a modicum of humanity into the convicts’ life. Inmate Ganin has become apainter: his paintings- mainly landscapes with churches on a river bank- gracethe walls of every building in the colony. Former death-row inmatesperiodically take part in amateur shows: Mikhail Bukharov, 28, writes fairlygood poetry and plays the guitar. On August, 23, the colony had “open house”with relatives coming to visit inmates in the general security section. Yetnothing the prison officials do can make up for the inherent inhumanity of thesystem.
Why a Pigeon WasKilled. Today the colony is expanding: a new section for lifers is being built while the existingfacilities are being enlarged. This is only natural: now that capitalpunishment has been all but abolished life sentence is increasingly common.Laws are becoming more humane. True, everyone knows that inmates at InstitutionOE-265/5 had their death sentences commuted to life not only out of altruismbut, above all, because Russiahad joined the Council of Europe. At the sametime government officials and lawmakers in Moscow sought to make the convicts’ life asunbearable as possible. Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov made no secret of hisintention to institute penal servitude in Russia so that convicts would“every minute pray to God for death”. The prison rules for lifers, whereby theyare to get less than one gram of tea leaves a day, seem to have been written bySeleznev’s peers. True, this rule is not observed at Institution OE 265/5:there inmates get 30 rubles’ worth of food a day- not a bad diet by Vologda standards withunemployment life and wages niggardly. It is another matter that an extra sliceof bread cannot replace an effective system of measures to adapt the “livingrobots” to normal life.
On the day wearrived at the colony there was an emergency: it came to light that 2 lifershad tamed a pigeon and taught it to carry notes to their buddies in the nextwing. Colony officers had to kill the pigeon- in line with standing regulations.