The Right of a Convict to Solitary Confinement in Places of Imprisonment as One of the Security Provision Measures

Abstract

The article considers the issue of the convict's right to solitary confinement while serving his sentence in closed penal colonies for the sake of their safety. The study has revealed that the normative-legal acts of Ukraine do not regulate properly some issues related to the concept of «safe place», including the issue of providing a legal procedure concerning the personal safety of convicts. The author substantiates the concept of «safe place in penitentiary institutions», which should be understood as any specially equipped room, including a separate cell in a disciplinary prison, a cell-type room or solitary confinement, to which access of the parties to the conflict, other convicts or prison staff is restricted or prohibited without special permission, and which maximizes the personal safety of the convicted, who in accordance with the law sought help. The article substantiates the proposal to supplement Article 10 of the Criminal-Executive Code with the provision about the duty of the staff of penitentiary bodies and institutions to identify sources of danger to the life and health of the convict while serving the sentence and supplementing the Rules of Procedure of the penitentiary institutions with a separate section on transferring the convict to a safe place and the provisions clarifying the content of «safe place», «danger to life and health of the convict». Isolation of convicts in the form of cell detention, which affects the level of security of convicts. Thus, according to the European penitentiary rules, the priority is the separate detention of convicts, especially in European countries such detention is a common practice. No country in the world practices holding large groups of convicts, except for some post-Soviet countries, including our state. In this regard, it would be worthwhile to borrow foreign experience in order to comply with international standards and accelerate the transition from the barracks method of detention to the cell.