I can not sit calmly and listen to the raptures of certain of my colleagues and even of certain human rights advocates on account of the declaration of the new director of the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments (FSIN) of Russia [the current name of the agency responsible for running the country’s vast penal system, formerly known as GULag–Trans.] mister Reimer about improving the penitentiary system, Improvements, I will note, they promised in the distant – to the year 2020 – perspective , yet some are attempting to choke from rapture already today.

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A couple of days ago I read the draft of the new conception of reforming the criminal-execution [penal–Trans.] system of Russia. The first impression – a sense of déjà vu. I swear I’d already read this some time before, some 10-15 years ago. In various sources. And I didn’t like it then either. And now I don’t like it yet again. And the old arguments come floating back. The UIS – is truly an executional system. I would sharpen it: a dully executional one. It executes even those instructions that it is criminal to execute. For example, the instructions of investigators not to provide medical treatment to sick people in a SIZO [an investigative isolator, where suspects and accuseds are remanded from the moment of their arrest until sentencing–Trans.]; not to grant them visitations with kin, lawyers; not to dispatch their letters to instances…