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In Lithuania, over the past year, more than a thousand, about 16 percent. – The number of people in prison has decreased. Currently, the penalty is served by 198 people, counting 100,000. population, up from 232 two years ago.
This downward trend in prisoners will continue. Amendments to the law have entered into force that help to broaden and increase the use of alternative penalties, abandon the outdated approach to serving convicts, and encourage convicts to change their criminal behavior through new methods of work.
This is the information officially published by the Ministry of Justice this summer.
However, these numbers and words are not a true mirror. Or are they just a crooked mirror reflection. Because the “new ways of working” are so far the exception, but not the rule.
The convicts themselves say: no, the Soviet era has not yet left Lithuanian prisons.
And even those who left prematurely can return. Because they cannot live otherwise. Nobody taught them, they didn’t help them. They just closed them, planted them.
They may come back to the fact that the understanding of punishment by prison administrators, officials and legislators is usually just a high fence in prison dividing life between crime and punishment.
People who have been or are on the other side of the prison fence in one sense or another are talking about it: convicts and officials who see the prison system with their own eyes.
Everyone expects the correct decisions from politicians. Solutions are needed here, on the other side of the fence.
Only they are still missing.
By the way, another interesting figure: the maintenance of one prisoner per day costs on average about 30 euros (according to 2019 data).
This year, about 1,500 people are serving their sentences in Lithuanian prisons. convicts.
***
When the judge sentenced Tom, he was 21 years old. “You ruined my life,” said the guy in the courtroom.
“Where is the logic, if a criminal who committed a misdemeanor and sodina Along with repeat offenders convicted many times of serious crimes? ”Asks Linas, who is currently serving her sentence.
The names of both have been changed in this text.
Tom: When the prosecutor offered me a punishment, I became weak
Tom is 24 years old. He was released from prison this spring after spending more than three years there.
– Tom, in your opinion, why is Lithuania leading the way in terms of the number of people imprisoned? Strict penalties?
– I would not say that the laws are too strict, but they are very strong. Let’s say people get a year and a half in prison for smoking marijuana.
They come after a year and a half or even two. Just because he had a gram of weed with him – they smoked themselves and still had leftovers.
I don’t think that punishment is adequate. There are not one or two punishers for doing it. And the real crimes that are committed? For example, the famous case of Jurbarkas, where an athlete who suspected a girl and tried to rape her did not receive an actual prison sentence. A great example when it comes to punishments.
– Did you have to meet, interact with people who ended up in jail, as you say, for a gram of weed?
– There was, and none. It was a shame that there were even people who succeeded them. Being in prison has a great psychological effect on people.
For me, for example, it was very difficult to adapt in freedom. I served a sentence of three years and four months for fraud. I was good all the time, I only had one penalty at the beginning. For sleeping out of place. I was released on parole, I was released three months earlier.
– What are the penalties for and what does it mean for you if it is for sleeping out of place?
– The simplest. Come to the area and assign yourself to the platoon. There are different rooms in the cage. He does not like the place where he is named, he does not agree with other prisoners. Then you go out to live in another room because there you agree with the people. Ask the platoon leader to transfer you to other facilities in writing. He does not do it because he is lazy. Then the officers come at night, check, see that they are not sleeping in their place. That way you get a penalty.
– What does the sentence mean for the convict?
– Conditional release fails as that year approaches, sometimes you may not be allowed to buy. You will not be able to buy food, cigarettes, you can only buy hygiene products.
– Lithuania constantly talks about human rights. And human rights in prisons?
– There is not even anything to talk about human rights in the area itself. There you have no rights. No way.
Most of the civil servants are as old-fashioned as in Russian times. An officer told me when we interacted with him that in such an institution, it is not necessary to replace one or two officers, but all. Don’t let the new owner learn from the old ones, don’t take their approach.
The attitude now is not what it should be. I’m not saying anything, the officer must be strict, but he must not humiliate the convicts. This is how conflicts between officials and convicts occur.
Poor detail. But I will share a photo. Yes, they served us food in those thermos. I am speaking here of those who had a neglected state. If such a photo had reached the media while I was there, the officials would have included the official even for a trifle.
Reader Photo / These thermos provide food for the convicts.
– What do you think could be alternative punishments for minor offenses?
– As you say … I justify many punishments, I am not saying they are not necessary. But sometimes you should think that it is possible in another way. You can think of other ways besides planting a person right away.
– You mentioned smoking herbs. And other crimes?
– I know a man who was sitting with me and had welcomed me for three years and six months just for stealing a gas cylinder.
– Sounds like a joke.
– What I’m talking about. Funny. Even in the area itself, the person was called a “balloon” because he was sitting behind a gas cylinder.
***
“I think that people who have committed minor crimes would benefit more from freedom, only specialists should work with him and his family,” is convinced Jūratė Danielė, who has been working in a prison for 12 years.
Vytautas Lamauskas, a former prison system official, claims that the prison fence does not solve the problem in principle. Judge Audrius Cininas states that the announced decrease in the number of people incarcerated is probably due to the decrease in crime in Lithuania in general.
The thoughts and perceptions of these officers about the prison system are discussed in Part II.
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