Surviving Russian Prisons

by Piacentini,Laura

• ISBN13: 9781843921035
• ISBN10: 1843921030
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-01
• Publisher: Willan

Summary

What do Russian prisons look like? Who is sent to prison in Russia? How is punishment allocated and administered? This pioneering book aims to answer these and other questions by embarking on a journey that begins by exploring how the prisons have survived the collapse of the USSR, and ends with a discussion of global penal politics. It is the first book to have been written in English on penal practices in the contemporary Russian prison system.Surviving Russian Prisons focuses in particular on the reality of work and labour within Russian prisons, exploring its changing function. From being for much of the twentieth century a major activity as well as an ideological justification for prison regimes, its main function now has been to enable prisoners to survive through participating in a barter economy.In exploring the microworlds of the Russian prison this book at the same time presents new evidence and offers fresh insight into how prisons are governed in societies undergoing turbulent social and political transformation; it explores how current practices in relation to prisoners' work comply with international regulations designed to promote humane containment and positive custody; and debates the nature of knowledge on penal discourse in transitional states.

Table of Contents

List of tables and figures	vii
Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction	xi
Aims of the book	xv
Themes	xv
Plan of the book	xvii
Translation and transliteration from Russian into English	xx
1 Context of research and methodology	1	(26)
Initial research interest	1	(8)
The strategy for the main phase of the research	9	(4)
Main study	13	(3)
Russia's prison landscape and juggling researcher identity	16	(11)
2 Prison labour, reform and economics: a review of the literature	27	(26)
Soviet prison labour and the greedy consumption of prisoners by the state	28	(5)
Theorising Soviet prison labour	33	(5)
Prison labour around the world	38	(7)
Prison labour and international law: soft or hard protection?	45	(2)
Russian prisons after the USSR: turmoil and the penal system	47	(6)
3 Filling the void: Russia's new 'penal identities'	53	(32)
The new penal identities in Smolensk and Omsk	54	(1)
Imprisonment in Smolensk prison region	55	(11)
Imprisonment in Omsk prison region	66	(14)
Comparisons between Smolensk and Omsk	80	(5)
4 Barter: Russia's 'penal micro-economy'	85	(20)
Central government funding of the prison regions	86	(4)
Bartering for survival in non-prison and in prison life	90	(7)
Branding prison barter	97	(1)
Views on barter	98	(7)
5 Penal ideology in transition: identification in geographical spaces	105	(21)
Identities and social research	106	(4)
The first occasion of penal identification: the death of Soviet penal identity	110	(5)
The second occasion of penal identification: theoretical improvisation	115	(7)
The third occasion of penal identification: the universalisation of penality	122	(4)
6 Prison practices that test the limits of human rights norms	126	(19)
The peculiar role of barter in prisons	127	(2)
Prison labour and exploitation	129	(8)
Prison labour and social welfare	137	(8)
7 Western borrowings: how human rights have 'travelled' to Russian prisons	145	(24)
Russia's path to penal modernisation	146	(8)
Globalisation and universalism	154	(4)
Human rights as Russia's new penal ideology	158	(5)
Localising human rights: prison officer narratives	163	(6)
8 Beyond the metaphor: the phenomenon of 'failed penal societies'	169	(19)
Carceral disgrace	170	(1)
Carceral discreditation	171	(10)
Mainstreaming discourse and new ideological boundaries: can the prisons survive?	181	(4)
Concluding thoughts	185	(3)
Appendices
1 List of interviewees	188	(2)
2 Research questions and prompts used to guide the interviews	190	(2)
3 Aerial plan of a Russian penal colony	192	(2)
References	194	(15)
Index	209