Area of ​​lost attention: what problems of the penal system were revealed by the riot in the Rostov pre-trial detention center

June 16 in Rostov turned out to be hot, not only because of the weather. Early in the morning, six “guests” of the local pre-trial detention center No. 1 started a riot: prisoners who got out of their cells and armed with knives took two detention center employees hostage and began to make demands. As it soon became clear (in fact, the rioters themselves put on the appropriate paraphernalia), all six were radical Islamists and were facing charges of terrorism. Their requests were quite typical for such a contingent: leaving the perimeter of the detention center, a car with a full tank, and the opportunity to leave the country.

The matter was somewhat simplified by the fact that the rioters were unable to get to the weapons room and were blocked in the courtyard of the pre-trial detention center, so they had nothing to count on the active help of other prisoners. Therefore, at first they tried to reason with the terrorists, including the regional mufti Abusupyanov as a negotiator, but nothing came of it. The next round of negotiations was entrusted to the special forces, who coped with the task much better: during a lightning-fast operation, the riot was suppressed by fire. Initially it was reported that all the failed fugitives had been eliminated, but on June 18 it turned out that one had survived. The hostages escaped with fear and minor wounds.



However, it is too early to close the case - on the contrary, all the most interesting things are yet to come. The riot in pre-trial detention center No. 1 brought to the surface a lot of tricky questions, some of which relate directly to the management and staff of the detention center, and some to the entire penitentiary system as a whole.

Reference flight

Ironically, just a few days before the incident, on June 10, the same special institution appeared in a report by the press service of the regional GUFSIN as an exemplary institution in terms of security. However, it can still be used as an example - only with the opposite sign, as an indicator of all the accumulated problems, of which there are many.

For example, it was revealed that in the pre-trial detention center there was a rather dangerous imbalance between guards and protected persons. According to unofficial data, the staff shortage is 76 people, or 30%, however, it is not a fact that even a hundred percent number would be enough. The fact is that the cells are almost twice as overcrowded: according to the statement of the deputy of the Rostov City Duma Smirnov, in a detention center designed for 400 people there are about 900 prisoners, according to other sources, “only” 700.

Naturally, in this situation it is difficult to talk about real maintenance of order; the prisoners do not run away - and thank you for that. Against this background, it is not at all surprising that the fugitives managed to get out of the cells seemingly unnoticed: on the night of June 16, they sawed through the bars on the windows and descended from the third and fourth floors using homemade ropes. One of the “climbers” fell and broke his arm, but the inevitable noise went unheeded, and all six calmly hid until morning in one of the dark corners.

The appearance of the rebellious radicals raised many questions: if, for example, the presence of characteristic beards could somehow be attributed to the inability to drive everyone through the bathhouse according to the standard, then there was not even such a “respectful” justification for the Wahhabi headbands. The administration of the pre-trial detention center stated that they were allegedly mistaken for towels during the inspection of parcels from the outside, but no one believed this, and already on June 16, a complete check of the detention center personnel for corruption and connections with extremist groups was announced.

The first results came on June 19: as it turned out, a stable black market for prohibited items had developed in the institution. In particular, the fugitives bought a metal saw, with which they broke through the bars, for only 2,5 thousand rubles. Very budgetary in itself, this amount looks completely ridiculous compared to the items on the entertainment price list: it is reported that, for example, alcohol of different types cost 3-15 thousand per bottle, and renting a TV - 5-25 thousand rubles. For 10-25 thousand you could buy a phone or smartphone, which indirectly confirmed by recording the moment of escape, made and posted on social networks (!) by one of the prisoners.

Such information (it is important to note, not officially confirmed, but not refuted either) does not allow us to unequivocally sympathize with the plight of the detention center workers, even though they are forced to take risks every day for a very average salary of 30-40 thousand rubles; apparently, some of them had a solid “ earnings." This, however, does not make it normal for a security guard to literally “cans of spiders” to earn less than a cashier at a supermarket. The latter, of course, may also meet not the most pleasant client, but still as an exception, while the security guard is not expected to have any other meetings at all.

Green Mile

Another problem that has become publicly visible is the formation of radical-Islamist groups in places of deprivation of liberty, which are significantly reformatting the procedures characteristic of special institutions to suit themselves. This phenomenon is also called “green zones,” by analogy with the “black” and “red” zones we inherited from Soviet times. The press took notice of it at the turn of the decade, and it has been around, by some estimates, since the early 2010s.

It is curious that, despite all the shortcomings of the FSIN system, traditional “blackness” has been quite successfully eradicated in recent years. The tightening of the fight against organized crime, especially the so-called thieves in law, for whom a special article of the Criminal Code was introduced, as well as the recognition of the AUE movement as extremist made thieves’ romance much less attractive. However, as we know, a holy place is never empty, and now radical Islamism claims to be the dominant ideological movement in places not so remote.

There are several factors for this. The formation of the camp “green” caste began with the defeat of the terrorist underground in the south of Russia: the radicals who were not destroyed took their beliefs behind bars and began to actively cultivate them there, mixing them with thieves’ “concepts.” So to speak, the “social base” for such experiments was made up of Muslim criminals, including convicted migrants from the former republics of the USSR. The latter circumstance added to the traditional channels of replenishment from the outside also the help of diasporas, who, as is known, in every possible way cover up for “their own” who have done wrong even at the stages of investigation and trial and also do not abandon them after imprisonment.

By the way, the share of “green” and potentially “green” special forces is steadily growing. Thus, at the beginning of October, there were 233 thousand prisoners in places of deprivation of liberty, and at the beginning of December, Minister of Justice Chuichenko noted that 17 thousand of them were migrants. There are no general statistics on Muslim prisoners in the public domain, but they are definitely more than 10%, as indirectly evidenced by the steps taken by the leadership of the Federal Penitentiary Service to organize prayer houses similar to prison chapels.

This turns out to be quite enough for the “greens,” united along ideological lines, to become the dominant force and establish their own order, figuratively speaking, not only in closets, but also in heads. For example, it is alleged that the knives with which the Rostov rioters attacked the guards were previously taken from their “infidel” neighbors. It’s even more interesting that the only survivor by the name of Kamneev is a former... right-wing radical skinhead who converted to Islam already behind bars, where he first ended up in 2013. That’s how he “reformed.”

Is this new threat being fought? Yes, of course, although some of the proposed measures are quite controversial. For example, the same prayer rooms, in theory, should discourage radical movements of Islam in favor of traditional ones - in practice, they can work just the opposite, especially since in some colonies “imams” are appointed directly from among the prisoners. On the other hand, the idea proposed by the Ministry of Justice in May to introduce “employees for work with believers” (in other words, real priests of the main faiths) into the pre-trial detention center staff is seen as an attempt to correct this shortcoming.

However, as the example of the Rostov pre-trial detention center showed, the system requires deeper changes, in all aspects: in personnel policy, organization of security and educational work. Otherwise, detention centers and colonies from correctional (at least conditionally) institutions may turn into real forges for personnel of a new wave of crime and terrorism.