PERMANENT REFORM IN THE FIELD OF EXECUTION OF CRIMINAL SENTENCES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of individual goals and objectives of the Penitentiary System Reform Strategy, approved by the Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on December 16, 2022. Attention is drawn to the fact that this document fundamentally does not stand out from a large number of concepts, programs, plans, strategies for reforming in the field of execution of sentences, which have been developed in Ukraine since 1991 and which also stated the existence of systemic problems and set the task of bringing the conditions of serving sentences in line with international standards. In this case, the very formulation of the question of the need to reform the "penitentiary system" is questionable, since the current normative legal documents regulating the activities of bodies and institutions for the execution of sentences do not contain the name "penitentiary system". It is possible to reform the State Criminal-Executive Service, which has the appropriate structure within the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, and it is the need for structural changes that is defined in the Decree as a problem that needs to be solved. In order to bring the conditions of detention of prisoners in line with international standards, it is necessary to transform the colony system with collective detention of prisoners, which is a legacy of the Soviet era, into a modern prison system with appropriate infrastructure. Instead of the management of penitentiary institutions, there should be an innovation in the form of prison management, only under such conditions it is possible to meet international standards that recommend civilized forms of treatment of convicts, and not the execution of sentences regulated by criminal executive law. It is necessary to abandon domestic standards for the execution of sentences in favor of international standards for the treatment of convicts. The probation service does not have to execute a sentence, but must execute a court sentence, carry out probation in relation to public sanctions and measures, as provided for in the Council of Europe Rules on probation.