Shadows of Freedom: a modern look at escaping from correctional institutions

Khimedenova Dina Nikolaevna ORCID: 0000-0002-1270-7447 PhD in Law Associate Professor; Department of Criminal Law; Southwest State University 374 Achkasova str., sq. 1, Khalino village, Russia, 305545 sadchikova.dina@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Tarikin Vladimir Konstantinovich Associate Professor; Department of Criminal Law; Southwest State University 305016, Russia, Kursk region, lane Pirogova, 1A, sq. 11 tarykin.vladimir@yandex.ru

Introduction

"No penal system in the world is immune from escape"

M. Dahkhaev

One cannot disagree with the author of the statement, because, indeed, no matter how ideally the penal enforcement system is built, no matter how its employees fully fulfill their duties, the convict's desire to be free will be much stronger, which means that he is capable of doing anything to achieve this goal.

From a criminal law point of view, escape is a deliberate unlawful act for convicts to leave correctional institutions where they are serving their sentences according to a court verdict ^[1]. From the moment the first correctional institutions appeared to this day, escape has been one of the most common crimes committed by convicts, as well as by persons in custody. This act is committed for the purpose of evading punishment and has a significant public danger. It disrupts the activities of the institution of the penal correction system (hereinafter referred to as the Penal correction system), prevents the execution of a sentence, as well as the fulfillment of goals and objectives defined by criminal and penal enforcement legislation.

The sanction of Article 313 of the Criminal Code (hereinafter referred to as the Criminal Code) of the Russian Federation provides for a fairly strict liability for escape from places of detention, up to a penalty of eight years in prison. Nevertheless, escapes continue to occur annually in Russia, which supplement statistical reporting and make it possible to assess these acts, determine the nature and conditions that contributed to the commission, and develop the most optimal and effective measures aimed at minimizing and preventing escape activity.

Issues related to the escape of convicts from correctional institutions have remained an urgent topic of discussion for many years. Many scientists do not ignore the problem of escapes and actively study this phenomenon in their research, which can be seen in the works of O.G. Kovalev, A.A. Nuzhdin, R.M. Morozov, N.V. Gryazeva, A.V. Kachmazova and other penitentiary researchers.

Turning to the static data, it can be noted that over the past ten to fifteen years, the number of escapes in Russia has decreased significantly. So, for example, if we consider the period from 2010 to 2023, we can trace a decrease in the number of escapes from correctional institutions from 180 cases to 131. In addition, according to official statistics for the first half of 2024, the number of escapes did not exceed 55 cases, which again indicates a slight decrease in escape activity ^[2]. Of course, analyzing such a significant period of time, it may seem that this is not such a big difference, but one should not underestimate the complexity of the work of the staff of the penal correction system, who are on duty every day, being under constant stress. Undoubtedly, their work requires vigilance, a strong nervous system and endurance, so do not underestimate the efforts invested, looking only at the surface – numerical indicators. In any case, the results achieved are due to improvements in the conditions of detention of the special agent, the introduction and improvement of the security system, as well as engineering and technical means of security and supervision.

But despite all of the above achievements in the field of protection and countering escapes from correctional institutions, this category of crimes occupies a central place among a number of aspects that require special attention and an approach to its minimization. So, for example, one of the recent escape cases that received a fairly wide public response was the escape committed in October 2024 by convicts of the Lipetsk colony IK-2. As the investigation showed, six convicts had been digging a 65-meter-long tunnel for six months, with the help of which they left the territory of the correctional institution^[3].

Against the background of the above, it is worth noting that the legislator does not ignore the issue of combating escapes from correctional institutions. A vivid confirmation of this is the Concept of the development of the UIS of the Russian Federation until 2030, approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 04/29/2021 No. 1138-R. One of its main directions in the field of ensuring the security of penitentiary institutions defines as the most important task the improvement of measures to prevent escapes.

Materials and methods

The methodological foundations of this work include dialectics, criminological, regulatory and comparative analysis, statistical method, sociological approach, as well as induction and deduction. Thanks to the use of these methods, it was possible to study the object and subject of research, identify problems in this area and present solutions.

Using the indicated methodology, scientific articles published in 2017-2024 on escapes of convicts from correctional institutions, as well as existing problems in this area, were selected. In addition to the above, statistical data indicating the number of persons convicted of escapes are reflected, and a comparative analysis for 2010-2024 is carried out.

On the basis of the conducted research, conclusions and recommendations were formulated on improving the activities of employees of the penal correction system in order to prevent escapes.

Results and discussions

Leaving aside the numerical indicators of escape activity, as well as the issues of regulatory and legal regulation of activities to prevent them, it is worth paying attention to the key question: what contributes to the escape: the negligence of employees of the penal enforcement system, the corruption component, criminological personality traits of convicts or their unwillingness to embark on the path of correction? To answer all these questions, it is necessary to understand in detail the determinants that directly affect the escape.

There are a lot of reasons influencing the escape. All existing causes can be divided into groups of external and internal factors ^[4].

The internal ones include:

1. Features of the convict's psychological state due to the following circumstances:

-non-acceptance of punishment, isolation;

- the influence of other prisoners who may persuade them to escape;

- mental abnormalities.

1. Conditions of detention of convicts: despite the general improvement in conditions of detention, this trend remains irrelevant for many correctional institutions. In particular, convicts on an ongoing basis have to deal with:

-inadequate communal and living conditions;

-part-time employment, which leads to the appearance of free time, which pushes the convict to thoughts of escape^[5];

- insufficient medical care.

External causes:

1. Improper organization of the correctional institution:

- Irrational management of correctional institutions is of great importance today;

-lack of proper control over the activities of employees;

- the corruption component;

-low level of authority of the employee in front of the convict;

- insufficient organization of preventive work with convicts;

- illiterate use of operational information received by employees;

- reduction of public control over correctional institutions.

2. Criminal connections:

- the establishment of criminal relations by convicts outside the correctional institution;

-transfers of prohibited items that can also be used to escape;

-the use of these connections for the purpose of misinformation of employees about the existing situation among convicts.

3. Insufficient professional training of prison officers:

- personnel shortage;

- poor-quality recruitment;

-low level of interest in retraining employees and improving their qualifications and skills.

All these reasons combined allow us to draw a not very comforting conclusion about the current state of readiness of institutions to counteract escapes ^[6]. But is this really the case? After all, everyone can characterize this situation in different ways and stand up for the employees of the penal enforcement system or even side with the convict.

If we consider the escape "through the eyes of a convict," then it can be fairly noted that his desire to be released is the key motive for committing the crime under investigation. Planning an escape, preparing for it, and committing it itself requires ingenuity, endurance, restraint, and careful study of the institution's weaknesses. In the course of such actions, the convicts pursue the main goal – to get out, get adrenaline, and some convicts - even fame, using various tricks.

Escape "through the eyes of an employee of the penal correction system" is a kind of system failure. This is the result of an omission, someone's mistake, inattention, negligence, or lack of knowledge. Among the reasons for the escapes, professional shortcomings in the work of employees have already been discussed in detail. But at the same time, none of the ordinary people who found out about the escape case thought about the risky work that correctional officers do every day to ensure the supervision of the special agent, as well as the normal functioning of the entire penal system. Such work requires restraint, constant tension, maximum precision, abstraction from everything and concentration only on their duties. This has a strong impact on the moral and physical condition of the employee, who, first of all, are real people, not robots.

In addition to all of the above, it should be noted that today the prestige of service in the penal system is gradually fading. In the eyes of others, an employee causes contempt, distrust, and in some parts disgust, and the work of representatives of this profession does not correspond to wages, social guarantees, and is disproportionate to the daily risk that a correctional officer experiences while standing guard over law and order. In connection with the above, it is necessary to take into account the human factor and not put only the correctional officer in charge of the problems.

What measures should be taken to minimize escapes and reduce the number of escape activity? This issue is very relevant in modern realities, it is in great demand among scientists and contributes to the emergence of new solutions ^[7].

It seems reasonable to argue that in order to solve the stated problem, it is not enough to limit ourselves to developing organizational measures aimed at reducing the number of escapes from places of detention. Maintaining the trend of relatively high escape activity in the country requires a deeper study of this issue, which implies identifying ways to improve current legislation in this area. It seems that the most optimal and effective ways to change the norms of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which can positively affect the reduction of the number of shoots, will be the following:

Firstly, the reduction of the age limits for criminal liability for escape (Article 313 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) from 16 to 14 years. In this case, we are talking about people who are being held in educational colonies and have escaped. Unfortunately, the Russian legislator ignored this issue, which seems extremely inappropriate and contradicts the basic principles of criminal law. Delving into the essence of this aspect in more detail, it is worth noting that a situation in which, for example, a 15-year-old teenager who decides to escape from a place of imprisonment will not be prosecuted, and a 16-year-old convicted person will be held accountable before the law for a similar crime, at least, seems unfair, because public The danger of these acts is essentially the same. On the contrary, the behavior of a minor who, in the opinion of the judicial authorities, "deserved" the most severe sanction, and at the same time voluntarily left the correctional institution, requires mandatory appropriate negative assessment from the state, the absence of which will create a sense of impunity for him. Against the background of the above, it seems advisable to supplement the list of compounds for which criminal liability begins at the age of fourteen with the composition provided for in art.313 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Secondly, an analysis of the sanctions provided for in various parts of Article 313 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation suggests that their size does not fully correspond to the nature and degree of public danger of the act. The protection of the order of serving sentences established for convicts is one of the priorities of the domestic policy of the Russian state, which requires optimization of measures aimed at neutralizing escape activity. In particular, as previously noted in this study, the annual trend of increasing the number of escapes from correctional institutions indicates the imperfection of the existing criminal law mechanism for countering these criminal acts. It seems that the maximum penalties of four (Part 1 of Article 313 of the Criminal Code), five (part 2 of Article 313 of the Criminal Code) and eight years of imprisonment do not frighten convicts, which confirms the need to increase them accordingly.

Analyzing the above, it is possible to identify some aspects of the possible improvement of penal enforcement policy aimed at preventing and minimizing escape activity.:

1. Training of employees in the framework of official and initial training, advanced training and basic legal education aimed at acquiring skills and knowledge in the prevention and prevention of escapes from supervision, as well as the development of relevant professional competencies^[8];
2. Strengthening prosecutorial supervision over the activities of correctional officers in fulfilling their assigned duties, focusing on problems during the preparation and conduct of prosecutorial inspections in correctional institutions;
3. The introduction of a biometric identification model for convicts in remote facilities from the location of the detention facility using a mobile portable autonomous device designed to check the presence of convicts, integrated with an automated workplace located on the territory of the correctional institution, to prevent substitution of convicts ^[9];
4. Focusing the main efforts of personnel at night, increasing the reliability of issuing alarms by the detection lines of security equipment, setting up additional posts in "vulnerable areas": at production facilities (especially at night), withdrawal facilities, places of permanent residence of convicts, that is, the most likely and frequently used places to escape.;
5. Carrying out measures to block the channels of entry of prohibited items used by the special agent to prepare and commit escapes to the penitentiary institutions;
6. Strict and full compliance with the requirements of legislative and departmental regulatory legal acts related to the organization of security, supervision, protection and escort ^[10].

It is important to note that this is only a small part of the proposed measures that can contribute to the fight against escapes from correctional institutions, but it is important to keep in mind the individuality of the special agent of a particular correctional institution, the specifics of the system of organization of security and supervision activities, and other subjective factors. Therefore, based on the specific specifics of the institution, it is necessary to develop an individual work plan for the prevention of escapes by the staff of the institution, as well as to draw up an individual plan of educational work and preventive measures with convicted persons, which will be preceded by a detailed study of the personal files of persons registered and prone to escape ^[11].

Conclusions

An analysis of the problems associated with escapes of convicts from correctional institutions indicates the need for an integrated approach to their solution within the framework of the penal enforcement system. Having considered the determinants and studied several aspects of escape, it is worth noting that each of them has its own characteristics. The identity of the convicted person, the state of protection and supervision of convicts, and the activities of the staff of this correctional institution are all an individual set of criteria that collectively determine the nature, causes, and conditions of a particular escape. It can be concluded that the state of escapes from correctional institutions remains an urgent topic today, due to new examples of escapes, as well as high-profile cases of various tricks used by convicts in pursuit of freedom.

The wording "shadows of freedom" used in the article is addressed to the topic of escapes for a reason, because despite the ordinariness of this phenomenon in correctional institutions, each new case leaves a "shadow" – a trace in history, in the statistical reports of the Federal Penitentiary Service, in the work of correctional officers. Escape activity in correctional institutions plunges the entire penal enforcement system into the "shadow", causes distrust on the part of the public, and also raises questions about the competence of employees. As a result, the meaning of the activities of correctional institutions, laid down by the legislator and embodied in the purposes of penal enforcement legislation, is lost.

However, it is possible to get out of the "shadow" of escapes through the implementation of proposed measures aimed at reducing the number of escape cases, improving the activities of the correctional institution, as well as improving the professional skills of staff and strengthening control and supervision of convicts.