Punishment or Revenge?

Ukraine is living through hard times. The difficulties of the socioeconomic transformation also impact on the system of criminal code punishments. It has become fashionable to speak about the absence of true reforms both in the economy and many other spheres of societal life, including the one in question. The situation looks even clearer and hence more depressing if we look at the figures.

Donetsk Memorial has recently received the latest statistics how courts in various regions of Ukraine performed last year. As shown by the table, which also includes data for the previous two years, this information makes it possible to draw conclusions about the trends existing (or absent) in Ukraine’s criminal justice system.

The data given (1998 and 1999 data from the Ministry of Justice and for 1997 from the State Penitentiary Department) show a tendency toward reduction of the overall number of convicts by 5-9% annually. Nevertheless, imprisonment remains the main type of criminal punishment, with its share still rising. This tendency has been prevalent over the past decade. We can also say for the sake of comparison that, according to the State Penitentiary Department data, custodial punishment was meted out to 38,740 people (33.7% of all those convicted) in 1992 and to 29,372 people (32%) in 1988, while 83,399 were incarcerated in 1999, still an almost threefold increase despite the declining trend of recent years. The new Criminal Code, which could allow courts to sentence offenders to punishments other than incarceration, has not yet been adopted. Nevertheless, the existing criminal code does make such alternatives possible. Unfortunately, the courts do not strive to take advantage of even such limited opportunities as they possess. And while deferred or suspended sentences have slightly increased as a whole, this still cannot compensate a huge reduction in two years in the imposition of fines.

The number of convicted teenagers has remained practically unchanged, the only exception being that slightly fewer minors did time in 1999 than in previous years. Simultaneously, the absolute number, over 9,000 juvenile delinquents in the past two years, arouses considerable concern: no one knows how many of them, after serving their term, will again embark on a life of crime instead of resolutely sticking to the straight and narrow. And can we, citizens of Ukraine, be sure that our life will be safer after tens of thousands of youngsters have finished their university for criminals and return to society?

The number of convicted women, although down slightly in 1999, still remains high: over 67,000 in the past two years.

Perhaps the most alarming of the listed figures is the number of those sentenced to up to three years, 57- 59%, over the past few years. This means about 50,000 people annually are incarcerated actually for minor crimes. Many experts, including those who work in penitentiaries and have become hostage in a way to the such short-sighted judicial practice, believe that most of these convicts could do with alternative punishment. This could have kept intact thousands of families and averted many thousands of tragedies caused by somebody’s husband, son, father, or mother winding up behind bars for two or three years. I wish somebody had calculated the huge losses inflicted on our already poor society by such “justice.” For quite often the loss these people inflicted is many times less than the funds required to maintain them in a prison camp for two or three years. Moreover, there is currently virtually no work in such camps. This means these people will be practically unable to make up for the loss they caused. And maintenance of this army of almost 100,000 weighs on the weak shoulders of the Ukrainian economy and, in the long run, society. It goes without saying that quite often the offenses these people committed, petty theft, were caused not by their being hardened criminals but by the absence of livelihood, desperate existence, and sometimes even the attempt to avoid starving to death.

The obsolescence of the Ukrainian criminal justice system and its alienation from people is further characterized by two indicators listed in the table. First is the abnormally low number of acquittals, under a thousand a year. This means that if somebody comes under suspicion and is brought to trial, he is virtually certain to be convicted one way or another. There is practically no chance of acquittal.

The second sad indicator is the number of death sentences. Despite this country’s commitment to stay executions as long ago as 1995, despite the heated public debates over the abolition of capital punishment, despite the repeated complaints of the Council of Europe about the absence of progress in Ukraine in this matter, and, finally, despite the suspension of the execution of death sentences in March 1997, our judges continue, as if nothing has happened, to sentence 120- 130 people annually to death.

The 1999 data Donetsk Memorial has about some regional justice departments allow us to compare the work of courts and the severity of sentences passed by the judges in Ukraine’s three regions: West (Lviv oblast), East (Donetsk oblast), and also in Chernihiv oblast.

What immediately draws attention is the number of people sentenced to imprisonment per 100,000 population. Donetsk oblast’s per capita imprisonment rate is 1.7 times as high as that of Lviv oblast, 1.5 times that of Chernihiv oblast, and 1.25 times that of the national average. This inexplicable harshness of Donbas judges is also reflected in another indicator: the proportion of prison sentences out of the total number of convictions: 42% in Donbas vs. 33-34% in the center and Galicia. Donetsk oblast also sends more juveniles behind the barbed wire. On the other hand, offenders in the west and center of Ukraine more often get off with fines. The probability of actual acquittal is also slightly higher. And the absence of death sentences in central and western Ukraine in 1999 perhaps testifies to a greater receptivity of these regions’ judges to its long-overdue and humane abolition. There are ample grounds to believe that the overwhelming majority of our 120 death sentences were passed by courts in the eastern part of this country.

However, by all accounts, all these small differences do not change the overall pattern of the criminal punishment system in this country. This system still remains extremely cruel to the individual. It is not conducive to the reduction of the crime rate in Ukraine. It continues to be a completely heartless system based on revenge instead of being transformed into a system whose main function is to provide security for the citizenry. Thus further delay in the radical reform of this system and in the adoption of standards prevailing in the Council of Europe states are fraught with great losses of both a material and moral character for our society.

                                                                    Table                                         1997    1998    1999    Total number of criminal convictions    257790  232598  222239  Number of prison sentences              85396   86437   83399   As percentage of total number  of convictions                          33.13   37.16   37.53   Deferred sentences as percentage  of total number of convictions          19.4    21.63   22.07   Suspended sentences as percentage  of total number of convictions          —       18.72   21.16   Fine as percentage of total number  of convictions                          9.04    5.96    3.95    Total juvenile convictions              —       18165   17652   As percentage of the total number  of convictions                                  7.81    7.94    Including those sentenced  to imprisonment                         —       4945    4444    As percentage of total number  of convictions                                  5.72    5.33    As percentage of total number  of juvenile convictions                         27.2    25.2    Total number of women convicted         —       35140   32175   As percentage of total number  of convictions                                  15.11   14.48   Total prison sentences  of up under one year                    13920           12704   From one to two years                   15836           15786   from two to three years                 19389           20542   Total sentences of up to three years    49145   51061   49032   Sentences of up to three years as  percentage of total convictions         57.5    59.07   58.79   Total acquittals                        —       884     774     As percentage of total number  of criminal cases                               0.343   0.348   Total death sentences                   128     131     120 №7 February 29 2000 «The Day»
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