Russia Lacks Sufficient Jail Space to House All Siloviki Convicted of Crimes, Official Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 11 – Despite the fact that most Russian officials get away with any number of crimes, Russian penal system officials say that they currently lack enough jail space to house all those in the judicial and force structures who have been charged and convicted, despite having opened two new camps for such official convicts in the last year alone.

            On the one hand, many Russians may see this report as an indication that the regime is finally trying to impose some kind of order on “the bad boyars;” but on the other, far more are likely to see this as another example of official actions for show and as evidence of rampant criminality in the Putin regime.

            Lt.Gen. Valery Maksimenko, the deputy head of the Russian penal system says that the influx of ever more officials who have been convicted of crimes has overwhelmed the capacity of Russia’s jails, prisons and camps, forcing his institution to “open ever more new ones” (versia.ru/v-rossii-katastroficheski-ne-xvataet-mest-zaklyucheniya-dlya-policejskix-i-deputatov).

                Versiya commentator Vladimir Pozharsky says Maksimenko’s announcement raises aserious questions such as “why do we in the country organize special zones” for such people? Aren’t they criminals like everyone else in the system?  Why should they be treated any differently? Or protected from the anger of those they put away in their earlier lives?

            And perhaps most importantly: how far is the current regime prepared to go to protect these officials who have been convicted of crimes? Are there to be special camps for prosecutors? Others for investigators? And still others for policemen?  What becomes of the slogan that “before the law all are equal” if this goes on?

            But behind all of these is an even larger one, although it is one Pozharsky is careful not to raise even in his critical article: what kind of a system do Russians live in where such questions once raised are not addressed and where ever more people in power consider it their right to have one set of rules for the powerful and another for everyone else?