Pavel Sapelka: Sukala lies about number of prisoners
9:12, — Politics
A human rights activist compares the remark by the Supreme Court chairman with the statistical data.
According to the National Statistics Committee, more than 38,000 people were in prisons in Belarus at the end of 2011, Viasna human rights centre reports.
“According to statisticians, 38,410 people were in correctional facilities (penal colonies, prisons, pretrial jails and detention facilities) at the end of 2011. So, 8,410 people were lost. Or the number was rounded. But the correct rounding is 40,000, which is closer to the truth, because open type detention facilities were probably not counted.
So, correctional facilities were overcrowded by 6,000 people at the end of 2011. The current number is unknown. I don't believe the chairman of the Supreme Court. Moreover, the number of prisoners and prison capacity do not always determine the quality of confinement conditions. Who did decide that prisons can have 32,500 prisoners? The experts without knowledge of modern approaches to prison management,” Pavel Sapelka writes.
It should be reminded that Valyantin Sukala said recently: “The positive trend in crime allowed to further reduce the number of people sentenced to prison terms. Last year, 3,000 people fewer were sent to correctional facilities in comparison with 2011. We had 24,000 prisoners at the beginning of this year. It is 6,000 people fewer than in 2011. The capacity of our prisons is 32,500 people.” The chairman of the Supreme Court states that 30,000 people were in correctional facilities in 2011.