According to the POC of Moscow, the occupancy limit of the capital's pre-trial detention centers is 9150 people.

But in fact, there have been a lot more people in them lately.

As of April 1, 2022, 10,510 people were held in pre-trial detention centers in Moscow, of which more than 1,000 were for crimes of minor and medium gravity, the rest for grave and especially grave crimes.

This was reported to RT in the press service of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

“In the largest Moscow pre-trial detention centers, there are usually 1,700-1,800 people, which, by the way, also exceeds the 4 sq.

m per prisoner.

And now, the population of an entire pre-trial detention center, such as Butyrka or Matrosskaya Tishina, has been placed in the already overcrowded cells, ”PMC executive secretary Alexei Melnikov explained in an interview with RT.

  • Under investigation in the pre-trial detention center "Matrosskaya Tishina"

  • RIA News

Scale of the disaster

According to the human rights activist, it is these detention centers that suffer from overpopulation the most.

According to the PMC, Butyrka contains almost 29% of prisoners over the limit and 20% in Matrosskaya Tishina.

But these are just dry statistics.

It is not possible now to assess the whole range of problems that have arisen in connection with the overcrowding of isolation wards - public figures note that representatives of the Moscow Federal Penitentiary Service are reluctant to make contact on this issue.

“Unfortunately, under far-fetched pretexts, the administration of the institutions does not allow us to bypass the cell premises, although this is directly provided for by federal law, and it is quite difficult to assess the scale of the disaster,” Melnikov said. 

The human rights activist does not rule out that the ban on cell-by-cell tours for members of the PMC of Moscow is connected precisely with the current difficult situation in detention centers.

“If earlier the complaints were about overcrowding, violation of the standards of sanitary space per prisoner, but everyone had a bed, now we are getting information that there are not enough beds, even folding beds and bedding, in particular blankets.

People sleep in shifts and on the floor.

Perhaps the Moscow Federal Penitentiary Service does not want us to see such pictures, ”Melnikov suggests.

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According to him, the workers of the pre-trial detention center tell the members of the PMC that the previously dismantled beds are being urgently installed in the cells.

Including outdated samples with large cells, in which mattresses fell through, and the arrested people who lay on them complained of terrible back pain.

Mystical trends

Information about the overflow of the capital's pre-trial detention centers was confirmed in an interview with RT by Tatyana Potyaeva, Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow.

“Until the end of 2021, the number of prisoners in the Moscow pre-trial detention center was within limits close to the limit, but in January 2022 the number of prisoners began to grow, in some pre-trial detention centers it reaches 20%,” Potyaeva said. 

Potyaeva found it difficult to name the reasons for the number of prisoners, but noted that she intended to conduct monitoring and a meeting with representatives of law enforcement agencies on this subject to study the situation. 

Sit down please!

An analysis of open data and media publications in recent years shows that the number of serious and especially serious crimes in Russia is either growing slightly or decreasing altogether.

But against this background, another trend is noticeable - a significant increase in economic crimes and crimes in the IT sphere.

Thus, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, in five years the number of cybercrimes in Russia has increased 11 times.

Their share in the structure of crime increased from 1.8% to 25%.

According to the report of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in 2021, more than 18.5 thousand crimes related to bribery were registered in Russia.

This is 27.8% more than last year.

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At the same time, the leader in crimes in the field of economics - Moscow - does not trust those accused of bribery and cyber fraud no less than rapists and murderers, preferring to keep them behind bars during the investigation.

So, according to the POC of Moscow, 1,558 accused of economic crimes are now sitting in Moscow detention centers. 

“We cannot say that all these people are entrepreneurs, there are ordinary swindlers among them.

But not murderers, rapists and robbers,” said Georgy Volkov, head of the Moscow POC.

Volkov suggests that the choice of a measure of restraint for those accused of embezzlement and other financial violations in the form of bail or house arrest could stabilize the situation in the pre-trial detention center without complicating the criminogenic situation.

Comfortable pressure

Andrey Babushkin, head of the Commission on Civil Participation in the Development of the Penitentiary System of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC), identifies two key reasons for the overcrowding of the capital's pre-trial detention centers.

“The first and main reason is the too arbitrary choice of a measure of restraint in the form of arrest and weak control over this by the Moscow City Court and the prosecutor's office.

As a result, many people who could be under house arrest, on bail, on bail, are sitting in a pre-trial detention center so that it would be more convenient for investigators to put pressure on them, ”Babushkin told RT.

His words are confirmed by the data of the Office of the Judicial Department of Moscow.

The department’s statistics show that in the last quarter of last year and the first of this year, not a single petition was received by the Moscow courts to elect release on bail as a measure of restraint, and only 187 people were sent under house arrest.

At the same time, only in the first quarter of this year, the courts of general jurisdiction of Moscow granted more than 2,200 petitions from the investigating authorities to place the accused in custody for the duration of the investigation.

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The human rights activist added that another reason is the lengthy investigation period.

“Sometimes investigators simply forget about their suspects and do not visit them for months.

And sometimes, in order to make the case thicker and more impressive, they perform a lot of unnecessary procedural actions, ”Babushkin believes.

According to him, in addition to the above-mentioned subjective reasons, there is also one objective one - this is the growth of the population of Moscow. 

“The pre-trial detention center limits are designed for 12 million people, and now 16 million people live in Moscow together with migrants,” explained the head of the HRC commission.

The vice-president of the Russian branch of the International Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, lawyer Ivan Melnikov believes that in order to reduce the number of those in jail, criminal liability should be toughened for investigators for falsifying arrest warrants.

"In Art.

108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, a special amendment was adopted, providing for the inadmissibility of sending entrepreneurs to a pre-trial detention center.

But after its adoption, the number of businessmen in the pre-trial detention center could not be reduced, because investigators began to admit direct falsifications in petitions for arrests.

Write that the citizen is not an entrepreneur or that the crime in which he is accused is not related to entrepreneurial activity,” Melnikov said.

The lawyer sees no other choice but to supplement Art.

285 (“abuse of power”) and Art.

286 (“abuse of power”) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with a special amendment on “falsification of evidence for the purpose of detention”.

“If investigators start to be imprisoned for such falsifications, this will stop the wave of arbitrariness on their part.

But such a special amendment and the will of the leadership are needed for it to work, ”Melnikov said RT.