The tragedy in IK-19 – the seizure of employees hostage by convicts and their brutal murder, and then the murder of the invaders themselves – once again stirred up public interest in the topic of prison and gave rise to disputes: how this could happen and what led to it. Exactly the same questions were asked after the June hostage-taking of employees of pre-trial detention center-1 in Rostov-on-Don. Most likely, riots will continue, and the reason for this is a whole range of reasons: unbearable conditions of detention, discrimination against Muslims, lack of prison staff and their low level of training. The situation can only be corrected by completely dismantling the penitentiary system, which directly inherits the Gulag, and creating a new one based on the principles of humanism in its place,” says Anna Karetnikova, a former leading analyst of the Federal Penitentiary Service in Moscow.
Organ load
The Federal Penitentiary Service reacted to the June hostage-taking of employees of pre-trial detention center-1 in Rostov-on-Don with the simplest and least costly actions. Their goal was to calm agitated public opinion and portray the appearance of at least some kind of answer to the challenge.
There were demonstrative resignations of insignificant figures-switchmen, forced haircuts and shaving of Muslim prisoners (which is contrary to the law in the conditions of the pre-trial detention center), the arrested, according to tradition, were deprived of household goods that are important by prison standards: TVs and refrigerators.
However, very soon household appliances returned to the cells, prices for banned mobile phones stabilized, and prison life went on as usual. The system did not draw conclusions, and the measures necessary to protect at least its own employees were not taken. And the system could not and never set itself the task of ensuring the safety of the prisoners entrusted to it.
In IK-19, the deputy head for operational work was killed, in pre-trial detention center-1, as much as the deputy for operational work of the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service was taken hostage. Ironically, it is the operational service that is responsible for the internal security of institutions in the Federal Penitentiary Service. It is its employees who must know everything about all the convicts (and, by the way, about other employees of the institution): who is nurturing criminal intentions, who is hiding the forbidden phone or who brought it to the territory of the penal colony, who is talking about what with their comrades in misfortune.
The next tragic events have become new proof that the operational service cannot perform this function in the current situation. There are many reasons for this: the lack of employees of institutions (the director of the Federal Penitentiary Service claimed that the shortage of employees reached almost 20% in 2024), and the low educational level of graduates of departmental academies, and a huge amount of reporting to the detriment of work “on the ground”.
The shortage of employees in prisons reached almost 20% in 2024
At the same time, the operational service is assigned more and more functions that are not characteristic of it or even harmful. In a pre-trial detention center, this is assistance to the investigation in pushing the “villain” to admit his guilt, and, possibly, to slander other people. Sometimes the problem of the investigation is solved by means of in-cell developments, as well as illegal and unjustified deterioration of the conditions of detention, which in itself makes the operatives actually criminals even before they know the tart taste of permissiveness and corruption.
In correctional colonies, operatives are faced with the task of solving new crimes and new episodes, obtaining confessions from convicts, which is almost the majority of operational work and relevant reporting.
An additional burden is created by the war and the accompanying mobilization of prisoners: it is necessary to send to the front as many people as the higher leadership demands. Convicts should be motivated to do this, and this also falls on the operational service.
Special control should also be established over Ukrainian prisoners of war, who, contrary to the provisions of international law, are held, for example, in pre-trial detention center-1 in Rostov. Of course, this is also an operational area of work. As well as the fabrication of new criminal cases on the justification of terrorism against political prisoners already serving time: mathematician Azat Miftakhov, municipal deputy Alexei Gorinov, blogger Vladislav Sinitsa.
In such circumstances, there is not enough energy and time left to find out “what this or that prisoner breathes”. And it is unacceptable to miss someone who can become a source of problems. And this task should be facilitated by preventive registration.
Profanation of prevention
Professional accounting is not an additional punishment, at least it should not be so. Putting a prisoner who is prone to drug use, escape, suicide, and the spread of terrorist and extremist ideas on a specific type of registration is necessary precisely to single out from the general mass of prisoners those who need special control. In the supervision of narcologists and psychologists (if there are any in the colony), in frequent monitoring of the location (if we are talking about a person prone to escape), in other preventive measures provided for by the 72nd Instruction of the Ministry of Justice on preventive work. It follows from its provisions that prisoners are registered on the basis of operational information that they harbor some dangerous intentions. However, in practice, the whole procedure has degenerated into what is called “itemized” accounting.
In other words, a prisoner accused of drug possession is automatically, even before he is sentenced, recognized as “prone to drug use”, a wanted person is recognized as “prone to escape”, and the most dangerous incident occurred with “terrorist” and “extremist” articles.
Initially, those convicted of real attempts to commit terrorist acts, some of whom recognized their belonging to ISIS, were put on this register. But in recent years, civil activists, politicians, poets, directors, bloggers have been added to them, who are charged with the relevant articles.
Civil activists, politicians, poets, directors, and bloggers were added to those convicted of real attempts at terrorist attacks
A seemingly reasonable measure turned into an encumbrance, adding an extra burden of reporting. And it also began to serve a very bad service to the employees, eroding and devaluing the degree of possible threat posed by this or that prisoner.
“I have terrorist ones here,” the officer will say, leafing through a thick folder in which both a possible ISIS fighter and a harmless blogger who wrote something harsh on VKontakte will coexist. At the same time, the officer will consider the more dangerous of them not the one who can hide a knife in the sock, but the one for whom the Directorate can “knock on the head” more: this threat is always felt as more real.
“Special control” has lost its original meaning: control cannot be special if it becomes a routine. It cannot even be a control if it is necessary to keep more prisoners in sight than is physically possible.
Commenting on the tragedy in IK-19, politician Ilya Yashin, who spent a long time in a pre-trial detention center and colony and was himself on the preventive register, writes about this:
“In practice, the lists of professional registration in colonies include thousands of people who were recognized as “prone to terrorism and extremism” because of likes and comments on social networks, the transfer of thousands of rubles to an “undesirable organization” or for participating in peaceful protests. There are many absolutely peaceful people on the lists, and real thugs are often simply ignored.”
Approximately the same dispersion of attention, the loss of the original meaning occurred with the control over “forbidden objects” and “prohibitions”.
Internal regulations, annexes to the Order of the Ministry of Justice 110 include weapons, alcohol, drugs, mobile phones as “prohibitions”. Prohibited items must be taken away by employees, and their owners must be punished.
However, the same category of prohibited in the pre-trial detention center includes a huge list of both necessary and safe for prisoners: plastic cutting boards and graters for vegetables, colored pens, carbon paper, watches, kettles with a capacity of more than 0.6 kW… During searches, all this, without exception, must be seized. And the employee ceases to distinguish these items according to the degree of threat, they are all “prohibitions”, the eye blurs, because from this point of view, a watch or a lighter is no different from a knife.
At the same time, the risk of committing dangerous crimes in captivity has not disappeared. There are murders, escapes, and extortion. There is also recruitment, there are also mobile phones from which you can enter banned sites and study their content, and then discuss what you see with cellmates.
The Muslim question
A separate and complex problem is the detention of Muslims in captivity. And in relation to this part of the prison population, the Federal Penitentiary Service does not have any calculated and balanced policy. Like on a swing, the service is thrown from one extreme to another. Take away the Qurans! Stop namaz at the entrance of the check! Let them eat pork like the rest, you never know what religion they have! Don’t you dare to shout out out the window and call for prayer! Shave off beards – the mode is the same for everyone!
Violators are placed in a punishment cell or punishment cell. It is no secret that the premises for the settlement of the guilty are often filled with Muslims by more than three-quarters, the most obstinate of them become sworn enemies of the administrations and can not get out of the punishment cell for months.
Punishment cells or punishment cells are often filled with more than three-quarters of Muslims
But at the same time, close-knit and self-confident Muslims often achieve authority not only in the prison hierarchy, where they become both overseers and policemen, but also the officers themselves treat such “bearded men” with a certain piety and even with apprehension, sometimes ingratiating themselves with them.
And if Muslim communities (cells and detachments) are also well financially secured, the piety of employees, including the management of the institution, can increase to a dangerous level.
Of course, discrimination against Muslims takes place, although the equality of religions is declared in words. However, if the prisoner is baptized in captivity, this is a positive event for the Federal Penitentiary Service, worthy of being displayed on the agency’s website. If the prisoner converts to Islam, this is a reason for putting him on a preventive register as prone to spreading and studying extremist ideology. This is done behind the scenes, you can always find a reason.
Nevertheless, cases of converting to Islam by prisoners are not uncommon. This religion fits well into prisons, it is non-national, it implies solidarity and mutual assistance, and often the protection of new coreligionists from the pressure of criminals or the administration.
Radical Islamism, to which the hostage-takers declared their allegiance both in SIZO-1 and in IK-19, receives in captivity such a powerful nourishment as rage, indignation, anger, hopelessness, hatred, and a desire for revenge: the system is not aimed at reforming prisoners, it is not even aimed at their tolerable maintenance. It sometimes strikes with bestial cruelty, but almost always with indifference, indifference, injustice, hypocrisy, lies and deceit.
Moreover, all these features are often manifested by both employees who communicate with prisoners and the so-called “dark side of the force” – the brotherhood of thieves. A person who finds himself (and perhaps unfairly!) in these conditions and has not been able to adapt to them can be broken, he can stop valuing life, dreaming only of deliverance.
And in this situation, ISIS’s slogans about fighting the infidels will turn out to be appropriate for him in his own state and irresistibly attractive. Moreover, to quench the thirst for revenge and liberation, only the appropriate entourage may be enough, even without a formal oath on the Internet.
Approximately this path was made, judging by the information of human rights activists, one of the survivors after the storming of the Rostov pre-trial detention center-1 hostage-takers, Daniil Kamnev. An ethnic Russian, he first went to jail at the age of 17, converted to Islam in captivity. Released after seven years, he did not stay at large for long: soon the security forces accused him of belonging to an extremist organization and preparing a terrorist attack, which he himself categorically denied. He was subjected to cruel torture. On June 16, 2024, Daniil (Islamic name – Hamza) was one of the six people who attacked the staff of pre-trial detention center-1 under the black banners of the Islamic State.
Nevertheless, it would also be wrong to reduce the entire ISIS component to harsh and humiliating living conditions in penitentiary institutions. These conditions, of course, create a breeding ground for such tragedies, but it was not from prison that the killers of dozens of people broke into the Crocus City Hall shopping center. And it was not in prison, not under their influence, that the plan of action matured for quite prosperous men who attacked Makhachkala and Derbent in June 2024.
And if you look closely, in its attitude to the threat of radical Islamism, the penitentiary system copies the behavior of the Russian authorities and special services: it resolutely turns a blind eye to this threat. Both the attackers themselves and the frustrated ISIS insist: it’s us! We fired! We cut! We blew it up! We’ll be there again! Why don’t you pay attention?! However, the Russian authorities seem to be plugging their ears, preferring to look for a Ukrainian and Western trace in repeated tragedies.
Instead of working proactively against a completely undisguised threat, the FSB and the Investigative Committee continue to supply opposition-minded teenagers and old women who allegedly sympathize with Ukraine to prison in an uninterrupted conveyor belt, and the institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service continue to take them under special control, since all these services are parts of the same irrational system based on the policy of planned reporting, and moreover, in principle, people do not value.
Instead of working against a completely undisguised threat, the FSB and the Investigative Committee continue to supply teenagers and old women to prison
It is impossible not to mention the parallelization of some details of different tragedies: for example, the attackers tried to cut off the ear of one of the wounded employees of IK-19. This, of course, brings to mind the other ear – cut off by a security officer immediately after the detention of the terrorist from Crocus.
In the same way, the bloodless seizure of the employees of SIZO-1, after which the stormers reported the “liquidation” of all the convicts, can be seen as a kind of prelude to the bloody drama in IK-19, where the attackers began immediately with the murders of the employees, perhaps reasoning that the end would be the same in any case. The degree of violence increases with each subsequent turn of the spiral, since cruelty generates not only and not so much fear, but the desire to scare more. I am afraid that the surviving convicts of IK-19 will fully experience the anger and revenge of the system employees for the murder of their colleagues that happened in the colony.
As long as violence breeds more violence, there is no reason to believe that tragedies will not be repeated. A brutal video with wounded and killed employees of the penal correction system, I think, has already spread around the pre-trial detention center and colonies – the prison telegraph works day and night. And for some prisoner, powerless and cornered, it will one day become a recipe for what to do, a role model, a way to get rid of suffering. I do not rule out that it was under the influence of the video recording of the events in SIZO-1 that the decision to take hostages and kill employees from convicts from IK-19 matured.
And today’s correctional system as a whole has nothing to oppose to this. It is inert, it is incapable of change, it is punishable by initiative, it does not know how to see cause-and-effect relationships, and even if it wanted to change for the sake of its own safety, it is subordinate to the regime, it is controlled by the FSB, it is dependent on the investigation, it is left with no room for maneuver. It can only suffer and cause suffering to others.
In such a situation, on a wave of emotions, I would be extremely cautious in making suggestions about what should be demanded to be done immediately: the authorities are quite sophisticated in teaching us to be afraid of our own desires, skillfully turning them inside out. Punish for corruption or disorder of employees? It’s easy. Let cruel sadists take their place. To create incredibly strict conditions for terrorists, “special camps”? Of course! But the hostage-takers in IK-19 were not convicted under terrorist articles, but many political prisoners were convicted under articles of this category. So let them go to these camps! To protect employees? It’s easy – let them walk around the restricted area and shoot at everything moving. And if the weapon is taken away and used against them, it’s their own fault, slackers. Pay additional attention to Muslims? Yes, let’s take away everything that is left from them! Eradicate corruption? Firstly, it cannot be changed either by imprisonment or by raising wages: almost the entire Russian state works according to corruption standards. And secondly, it is the prisoners who will be the first to suffer from the eradication of corruption and the first to ask for the return of corruption.
The law provides them with so little of the most urgent and necessary things that corruption, no matter how wild it sounds, makes their hopeless life a little more like a human one. For two packs of cigarettes, the whole cell can go to the bathhouse not once, but twice a week. For a pack – go for a walk not in the worst walking yard, but in a spacious one, with a horizontal bar. You can “drag on” a prohibited mobile phone and hear the voices of relatives if the investigator agrees to give permission for legal calls only in exchange for a confession of guilt. However, you can go from the same phone to the website of the banned ISIS. And you can also try to find, craft or buy a banner and a knife.
Corruption makes the hopeless life of prisoners a little more like a human life
Therefore, I again agree with Ilya Yashin that it is impossible to partially reform the penitentiary system, which directly inherits the Gulag. It can only be completely dismantled and a new one can be created in its place – reasonable and serving humanistic purposes. Only then will it become both safe and secure, like the rest of the country, if it is to change in the same way.