August 29, 2024

Hostages of the System


Hostages of the System
A penitential center in Moscow.  Senate of Russian Federation, Flickr.

Psychological services have been offered in Russian prisons for 32 years, but they neither assist prisoners nor help employees of the penitentiary system. Instead, the system has become ineffective, according to the human rights project Pervy Otdel (First Department).

The problems begin with recruitment. Entry into the psychological service does not require a psychology degree; a professional retraining course and a "penchant for psychological work" suffice. A former member of the Public Monitoring Commission for the Protection of Human Rights in Places of Forced Detention noted that many people take the jobs not out of a desire to help, but because it is an easy path to obtaining a military rank and retiring earlier than many civilian specialists.

While some individuals genuinely want to help prisoners, they face significant challenges, due to limited resources and restrictive regulations within the penitentiary system.

In theory, prison psychologists should help inmates adapt to prison life, monitor their mental health, predict suicide attempts and self-harm, provide personal consultations, and prepare prisoners for life after release. Psychologists must also spend at least eight hours a month on professional self-education.

However, there is a severe shortage of staff. In Russia, there is only one psychologist for every 132 prisoners. This staffing shortage forces many psychologists to rely on mass testing instead of one-on-one communication with inmates.

"There is no real psychological work; it's all paperwork. Because of this, psychologists lack experience," a former member of the Public Monitoring Commission said.

The shortcomings of the psychological service are evident in the number of suicides. In 2019 and 2020, 2,842 persons died in prisons, colonies, and pretrial detention centers, 561 of whom committed suicide. The most recent case occurred on February 4, 2024, when Takhirzhon Bakiev, who had been brutally tortured in a colony in the Irkutsk region, was found hanged in Irkutsk's Pretrial Detention Center. Relatives and human rights activists believe Bakiev was either murdered or driven to suicide.

Asmik Novikova, a sociologist and expert with the Obshestvenny Verdict (Public Verdict Foundation), said that Bakiev should have been a clear priority for psychologists in the colony: "He was subjected to brutal torture and continued to serve his sentence. Psychologists should have been working with him. However, his suicide was not prevented, and even his attempts were not recorded in time."

There are also inadequacies in how psychologists handle prisoners who have attempted suicide. Such individuals are placed under closer surveillance, requiring them to check in every half-hour or hour, which can be particularly burdensome in prison. "Thanks to the so-called 'wonderful' psychologists, life in the colony becomes even more difficult," said Vladimir Rubashny, former head of the psychological service in the Republic of Tatarstan.

The psychological service also fails to prevent suicides among penitentiary employees. In 2019 alone, there were 180 cases. According to Rubashny, staff members are reluctant to seek help from psychologists because their issues are immediately reported to the HR department, which can result in termination.

A similar lack of confidentiality affects interactions with prisoners. Former political prisoner Sasha Skochilenko recounted how a psychologist offered her a consultation, only to later admit that her task was to determine why Skochilenko was switching price tags to anti-war stickers, thereby aiding the investigation into her case, not helping her.

You Might Also Like

Prison for a $51 Donation
  • August 13, 2024

Prison for a $51 Donation

A Russian-American citizen faces 15 years in prison for treason over a donation to a Ukrainian charity two years ago. 
Left Behind
  • August 03, 2024

Left Behind

The remarkable prisoner swap this past week is only the tip of the iceberg.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Murder at the Dacha

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955