Russian Penal System Draws Fire for Treating White Collar Criminals Differently than Other Convicts

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 11 – After Boris Titov, the Putin aide responsible for defending the rights of entrepreneurs, called on the Russian penal system to build special prisons for those guilty of white collar crimes, the jail system said it could not afford to do that but did agree to segregate the former from the latter in separate cellblocks.

            This compromise, reported by Interfax (interfax.ru/vef2018/628802), has already been savagely attacked by ordinary Russians and by former interior ministry officials as an unjustified deference to white collar criminals (kp.ru/daily/26879/3923880/ and kp.ru/daily/26879/3923874/ and especially the comments appended to each).

            The prison systems of many countries routinely segregate violent and non-violent offenders, but doing it in this way in Russia is likely to be one of those small things that will offend many Russians who will undoubtedly conclude that this is just another way Putin and his regime are taking care of their own at the expense of the people at large.