Government of Ukraine abolishes State Penitentiary Service

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has abolished the State Penitentiary Service and transferred its powers to the Justice Ministry.

The Government made the corresponding decision at today’s meeting.

Ukrainian First Deputy Justice Minister Natalia Sevastyanova, stressing the need to change the penitentiary system, noted that “the standards of execution of sentences have not changed for 75 years and most agencies are even not Soviet, but those of the tsarist era.”

Among the priorities of reforming, Sevastyanova called humanization and comprehensive introduction of the probation service – the system of probation centers supervising the convicted persons charged with certain obligations and restrictions, but without isolation from society.

“The reform requires that we abandon the Soviet penal inspections and substitute them with probation centers at the district level throughout the country,” the representative of the Justice Ministry said.

“We are talking about the fate of nearly 80,000 people, who are now behind the bars, we are talking about the fate of those who guard them as the detention conditions in prisons are… You know, there is a saying: the one who guards and the one who is behind the bars actually serve sentence together, just on the opposite sides of the wall,” Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said.

According to the concept, three new departments (probation, resource and regime support) will be created in the Justice Ministry, which will fulfill the functions previously assigned to the service. In addition, the reform envisages the creation of the department for inspections in the penitentiary facilities.

The regional departments of the penitentiary service will be abolished, and five inter-regional agencies will be established to substitute them. In addition, the salaries of employees of the penitentiary facilities are planned to be raised.