Prevention of Offences Committed by Convicted Prisoners of War: Problems of International Law, Penitentiary and Other Legal Regulation

Abstract

The goal of the article is to prove the necessity of forming in Russia a legal basis for a complex correctional-preventive influence on convicted prisoners of war due to their higher danger, relevant professional skills, and specific individual characteristics. Focusing the attention of Russian lawmakers on the legal regulation of key means of correcting convicts (definition of the concept of correction, a list of its means and then only a partial description of the contents of some of them) does not result in the creation of an interconnected system aimed at the prevention of penitentiary crimes, malicious violations and other offences committed by convicts. Although the prevention of new offences by convicts is one of the goals of penitentiary legislation, the Penitentiary Code of the Russian Federation does not include the means of achieving it, and the preventive significance of various penological and inter-sectoral institutions used in the context of convicts correction and early release from serving a sentence is not sufficiently described and implemented. The authors conclude that there is no due legal regulation of the treatment of prisoners of war in Russian legislation, including the Federal Constitutional Law «On Martial Law» and the Penitentiary Code of the Russian Federation, and that it is necessary to take into consideration the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War to improve the effectiveness of preventing offences committed by convicted prisoners of war. A number of clauses of the abovementioned international document present interest for the improvement of penitentiary and other Russian legislation, including a prohibition of the repatriation of prisoners of war in cases of a self-inflicted injury, gaining access to spiritual help from a religious organization only if the prisoners behavior is lawful, a possibility of preliminary detention before the imposition of penalty, the use of other measures by the state agencies of the Detaining Power, and well as by other international and national public organizations when convicted prisoners of war are isolated through their internment.