Say what you will about the administration of justice in Russia, but the tireless innovation of government officials is beyond doubt. Recently, Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov gave an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, coming up with the brilliant idea of creating an alternative to the investigative isolators (SIZOs) – special facilities where dangerous inmates (such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky) are held for years without conviction while the prosecutors complete their investigations before trial. Konovalov said that instead of the SIZO, the state could create “small special receivers [spetzpriyomniki] for those who are being accused of non-grave crimes. People will not be locked up in four walls and will be able to toil and more frequently be in the fresh air. The main task of [large-]scale reform of the criminal-execution [penal–Trans.] system – so that punishment would not break the life for a person, but would achieve goals of bringing him to reason, when this is possible.“

Only probably is that these special receivers already exist.  Further, having spent time in both SIZOs (in Vladivostok, where I was put in nearly every cell and spent a year and a half in the solitary confinement) as well as in special receivers (in Vladivostok and in Moscow), I would respectfully point out that these establishments are identically harmful to the unfortunate people stuck there – whether they are facing grave or light charges.