As it is known Prisons (designated for persons on remand) and Penitentiary Establishments (designated for sentenced persons) of Georgia has been transferred from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice since 2000. Hereby one of the recommendations of the Council of Europe experts has been followed, which certainly is a positive step while there are still many unsettled problems in the system all the same.
Deliberate violations of prisoners' rights on the part of the penitentiary personnel seldom occur in prisons and penitentiary establishments of Georgia but due to their awful living conditions it can freely be admitted that it attains one of the forms of torture. The premises of the penitentiary system are dilapidated and cells have not been rehabilitated for more than half century, there often is no water, in winter neither electricity, the establishments are overcrowded and the prisoners often have to sleep two at a time or alternately. Catering is insufficient and the prisoners are provided by their families and friends (state allocates approximately 1 GEL per prisoner a day), medical assistance and sufficient free medication is not accessible, no appropriate living conditions are guaranteed, antisanitation prevails. The existed situation is aggravated by corruption well established within the system for decades. The CPT delegation has expressed its opinion during the visit to Georgia in 2001 that functioning of the cells in the underground of prison #5 under the existed catastrophic conditions is impermissible and demanded their abrogation.
Under the alarming material-technical situation, disorderly fire-service, lack of recruitment, unemployment of the sentenced persons disorder of the records, breaches of regime requirements and insufficient financing of the system there is increase in the number of offence committed in the penitentiary establishments. Escapes and attempted escapes still persist, as well as offences pertaining to the use of drugs and alcohol. Absence of prisoners' employment is also one of the stimulating factors for the attempted escapes and commission of new offences in penitentiary establishments.
Due to the said grievous situation the statutory requirements are often violated. Here are implied the requirement for catering, sanitary-hygienic condition, social rehabilitation, education and professional training and other conditions provided for by the penitentiary legislation.
The most frequent possibilities for infringement of prisoners' rights are created during their transpiration from the isolator by the investigators of the Ministry of Interior or the Office of the Prosecutor General (e.g. to the places of the offence). Then the unprotected accused is in hand of the investigators and there is a possibility of subjecting him/her to physical or psychological pressure. It is advisable to provide for a mandatory medical examination upon prisoner's return to the isolator.
According to the unwritten laws established under the soviet penitentiary system and still operating unchanged in the penitentiary system of independent Georgia the administration always sought on the one hand to maintain order and peace in the penitentiary establishments and on the other to exercise its own interests and get more benefit. Hence in the course of the decades the interests of administration and prisoners have harmoniously intertwined and their peaceful symbiosis left both of them satisfied. Fixed rates have been established for those various privileges in return of which the prisoner pays money to the prison administration. In the course of years together with inflation and change of the money or due to other circumstances these rates certainly used to change but the principle of remuneration of all kind of service has remained unchanged.
A prisoner had to pay for:
1. Arrangement of a meeting, be it a statutory or an additional one. If failing to do so the representative of the administration could impose a disciplinary reprimand on the sentenced person several days (or hours) before the meeting and prohibit it on the aforementioned ground.
2. Getting a parcel ("peredacha") In case of default the representative of the administration could in the same manner prevent the naughty prisoner from getting the parcel.
3. Allocation to the central prison hospital. In comparison to other establishments there are more or less normal living conditions in this hospital and the well off prisoners were always ready to pay considerable sums to be moved there. For example if the rate fixed for meetings and parcels only cost a few (3-10) GEL, the sum required for moving to the central prison hospital amounted to several hundred US dollars. Certain rate was fixed for extension of each month of being in the hospital. When a prisoner could not afford such considerable a sum a practice of self-injuring was applied. E.g. to cut oneself by a sharp item, to swallow a broken spoon or a fork, injection of own saliva which causes suppuration and canker etc.
4. Handing of a letter to a prisoner by the supervisor or its delivery to the place of destination always had a rate.
5. More considerable sums were fixed to facilitation handing alcohol or drugs to a sentenced person by a representative of the administration.
6. Admittance of a prostitute to a sentenced person also cost considerable money.
7. Several hundred US dollars were fixed for a positive references for sentence persons the cases of which were pending before the Pardon Commission or the parole case being pending before a court. It is practically impossible to decide positively their case without a positive reference and the prisoner is obliged to buy that reference. A faithless prison governor is in the position to impose deliberately upon a sentenced person a disciplinary reprimand which excludes the possibility for a positive reference.
The aforementioned and other facilities of "making money" on the part of the administration have preconditioned that notwithstanding a low remuneration it was always very difficult to get employment in the penitentiary system and in fact it was always related to considerable protection or big money.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the leadership of the Ministry there still is and will be corruption until a corrupted background exists. In this regard in tandem of other measures it is necessary to increase the salaries of the penitentiary personnel so that it to be at least bellow the living wage
In our opinion in order to redeem the situation it is necessary under the existing conditions to conduct multi-branch and considerable works. A concept of the reformation of the penitentiary system should be introduced and priorities defined. In our mind the concept of the penitentiary system reformation should comprise the following objectives and tasks:
1. Implementation of a new system of recruitment and training;
2. Increase in labour remuneration of the penitentiary personnel with the view of decrease of corruption;
3. Decentralisation of the system;
4. Rehabilitation of the sentenced persons in the penitentiary establishments by virtue of enabling their employment;
5. Improvement of the system management by virtue of computerisation and word processing of the data base;
6. Improvement of health defence and catering;
7. Decrease in the number of detainees, to that end an institution of alternatives to the deprivation of liberty should be introduced as a constituent part of the system reform programme.