USSR: IRKUTSK LABOR CAMP FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS DETAILED

Created: 9/13/1983

OCR scan of the original document, errors are possible

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USSR: IPJCbTSK LABOR CAMP FCR JUVENILE OFFENDERS DETAILED

Summary: ecent series on "educational-labor" canps for juveniles has appeared in the main youth organization newspaper, rr>SC>OLSKAYA PRAVDA. The articles present an unusually frank picture of the harsh and violent life in these camps and offer an assessment of the kinds and causes of Juvenile crime in Soviet societyhole.

OLSKAYA PRAVDA on, S,3ord account by I, Shirobokov on the Irkutsk educational-labor camp (vospitatel'no-trudovaya Jcoloniya| for juvenile offenders. Titledhe series focuses on an "intensified regime" camp, the harshest allowed by law for juvenile criminals. (Adult camps have four regimes: general, intensified, strict, and special.) While Shirobokov clearly wishes to portray success on the part of the juvenile facility in reforming Its charges, he also presumably intends his descriptions of the harsh regime to deter ootential juvenile offenders.

camp;

en with heavy sacks. Meetings with their son camp does have greenery no time to enjoyoung man imprisoned fo juvenile facilityspecially grave

Description of the Internal Repime. Shirobokov opens his series byrick headquarters, fences, and guard towers. ew lamenting

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on ooors. stentThough the lains: "Weescribedntensified regiiw; convicted of "an and you dress ineconds --

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6 o'clock yound you are not allowed to sit down unless ordered until lights-out. You go to work in formation, to school in formation, and you are not permitted to go about the compound by yourself. Mister and roll-call on the parade ground,-calisthentics no matter what the weather. And at any time they have the right to look through your personal belongings." Violators of the rules are placed in "isolators" as punishment. Shirobokov gives prominence to the brigade system, inmate self-management, and "socialist competition" within the camp as important factors in "genuine rehabilitation." Though Shirobokov makes no mention of guards or of any formdministrative coercion save Lhe isolator, he does remind his readers that the camp administrator is "both an educatorhekist"oliceman).

Broadcast Information Service, Production Group

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Camp Violence. In recounting the biographies of several instates and administrators, Shirobokov records Instances of internal camp violence. The librarian Koroleva, for example, "had her head split open by 'the local children' [inmates]. Itiracle she rewired alive." Vandalism wss corrrxm "before the arrival of the new administrator." At least two of the inmates resorted to self-autllation to avoid labor. The Inmate Shergin "askedazor blade from the authorities and while at class cut his wrist. They stopped the blood at the Infirmary and punished him." Another juvenile, identified only aspoon to avoid work. Though Shirobokov is careful to speak of these incidents as long past or the work of an as yet unreformed Inmate, he nevertheless leaves the reader feeling that the Irkutsk camp is an exceedingly violent place.

Juvenile Crime. Through the biographies of several youngsters, Shirobokovtriking picture of juvenile crime in the USSR. Shergin, for example,emberotorcycle and auto theft ring in Magadan; he eventually became partouth gang in KoRsomolsk-na-Ainur which was responsible for numerous "beatings and robberies"ocal park. Another inmate is described simply asost are sentenced for "robbery, violence, theft, and malicious hooliganism." Shirobokov characterizes these youngsters as "sick, note notesarge portion of those incarcerated in Irkutsk sust be treated for alcoholism. ajority of the inmates sentenced to three years or longer were raisedother alone, orother and step-father. Often the parents of these children are themselves criminals or "parasites." Camp administrators and educators note with alarm the growing number of deliquents from "families that are extremely well off." One teacner complains that the feeling of "collective responsibility" once found in large families "has now been lost."

ranslation of Shirobokov's articles will appearuture issue of the JPRS USSR Report: Political and Sociological Affairs.)

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Original document.

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