Kremlin human rights official wants to get convicts out of pretrial detention sooner

Presidential Human Rights Council Chairman Mikhail Fedotov is advocating legislation that would send inmates from the harsh confines of pretrial detention to the relatively easier conditions of prison colonies before their first-instance court convictions take effect (before any appeals have been filed or heard).

Currently, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service transfers some pretrial detainees to prison colonies before their appellate rulings, but overcrowding (not human rights or any formal policy) dictates these moves.

Fedotov says roughly a quarter of all people in pretrial detention centers have already been convicted by first-instance courts, including inmates convicted in group cases who aren’t challenging their verdicts.

In July 2018, President Putin signed legislation that recalculates how pretrial detention is weighed when determining how much time should be considered “already served” for pretrial detainees who are ultimately sentenced to prison. The legislation was first introduced in June 2008.

Under the new law, one day in pretrial detention is equal to one and a half days in a standard penal colony or a juvenile correctional facility. The exchange rate jumps to two days in a penal colony settlement. The old one-to-one coefficient still applies to convicts placed in high-security prisons. Under the new system, a day’s house arrest is equal to half a day in pretrial detention, making it equal to 0.75 days in a standard regime penal colony or juvenile center, or one full day in a penal colony settlement.