8
0
As of September 13, 2024, a total of 40201 people were held in various penitentiary institutions of Ukraine, including 15392 people in pre-trial prisons and correctional institutions. There were 23896 people in correctional colonies, 54 people in educational colonies, and 859 people in correctional centers.
The decline in the prison population was rightfully a source of pride for the Ukrainian authorities before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2024. Indeed, few countries can boast of such a decline in the number of prisoners, although there are nuances.
The first of them is Russia’s occupation of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014. Accordingly, the total number of Ukrainian prisoners went down sharply, precisely after deducting the prison population of the regions that traditionally had the largest prison populations compared to other regions.
Similarly, the incarceration rate graph also proves the above thesis.
However, unfortunately, there are other nuances that are rather disappointing for Ukrainian penitentiary policy, and they are related to the relative size of the prison population.
Speaking of the population of Ukraine, it is worth mentioning that in 2020, the State Statistics Service gave a figure of 41.9 million people.
According to the IMF, in 2021, Ukraine’s population was 41 million. In 2022, it dropped to 35 million people, and in 2023 – to 33.2 million people.
According to the Institute of Demography and Social Studies, as of January 1, 2023, the population of Ukraine was 28-34 million.
According to the UNHCR, as of August 19, 2024, 6.8 million refugees from Ukraine were registered as a result of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.
When critically assessing absolute figures, one should consider the number of refugees, “evaders” and corruption in the TCC and VLC, and not always strong borders (if there are hundreds of people trying to cross the border, it means that there is demand and, accordingly, opportunities).
Accordingly, all this has created conditions for an even greater outflow of the Ukrainian population, and therefore we have every reason to take the Ukrainian population figure of approximately 28 million people as a basis.
Therefore, the incarceration rate as of September 2024 is more than likely to be 144 prisoners per 100 thousand people.
As a result, there is a very dangerous tendency for Ukrainian justice to move in a punitive direction. The forced derogation from Article 5 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights could not have passed without social consequences for the Ukrainian penitentiary system and national penitentiary policy.
However, more importantly, the forced derogation from Article 5 of the Convention could not have passed without psychological consequences for judges, investigators and prosecutors.
Unfortunately, the war continues. It takes lives of Ukrainians. Therefore, judges and prosecutors cannot stand aside and isolate themselves in their efforts to punish Ukrainians as much as possible through imprisonment.
Average Rating