Step by steppe - progressing probation in Russia

Introduction

Important changes have taken place in the criminal justice system of the Russian Federation since 1989 (Pridemore, 2005). Regarding these changes, most attention has understandably been devoted to shifts in such critical areas as the establishment of judicial independence, the protection of the rights of defendants and improvements in the truly dreadful conditions in the vast prison estate (Bowring, 2009; Piacentini, 2007). By contrast, this article considers probation services and their hesitant, uncertain development. The term ‘probation services' is used here to indicate the range of ‘community penalties' or ‘alternative sanctions' in place in ‘Western’ and western influenced jurisdictions. A brief overview of recent developments in probation in Russia is followed by reference to two initiatives with which the authors have been involved. The first was a training programme offered at the local level to probation officers in St Petersburg. The second concerned an EU project to advise the Department of Alternative Sanctions on policy and practice matters and to introduce electronic monitoring as a pilot in a penal colony. In conclusion, brief observations are made regarding the potential pace and trajectory of future developments in probation in Russia.

It is recognized that there are real dangers of misperception and cultural imperialism in failing to consider, reflexively, the dynamics of approaching another jurisdiction from, in this case, a largely English/Welsh perspective (Canton, 2006). As King and Piacentini (2005) helpfully observe in relation to custody:

… to look at Russian prisons through the lens of Western social science runs the risk of missing out on matters of crucial importance to our understanding. (King and Piacentini, 2005: 261−262)

With this in mind, it is important to at least touch on the historical context in which community penalties are emerging in Russia.

The context

If the emergence of probation services in the Russian Federation has been hesitant it has taken place in a context of an entrenched reliance on the sentence of imprisonment and a particular relationship between political power, the economy, criminal justice and incarceration. In the Soviet era of the recent past, the political culture became infamously generative of crime in a direct way through enforced political orthodoxy, penetrative local surveillance and the imprisonment of those deemed politically heretical (Solzhenitsyn, 1974). At the same time, the role of the ‘archipelago’ of penal institutions, their free labour and productions quotas performed a vital role in the command economy. (A monstrous system of ideological correction and ‘community payback’ if you will!). As Kalinin (2002) puts it, regarding ‘the legacy of the sadly notorious Stalinist GULAG’:

… that system had been founded first and foremost on the concept of deriving profit from the labour of convicted prisoners. (P4)

Therefore, as Bowring describes (2008, 2009), when the USSR fragmented and the command economy collapsed in the late-1980s, the criminal justice system inherited policing without popular legitimacy, political management of the courts, remarkably low acquittal rates, poor representation of defendants and little by way of a tradition in resettlement or non-custodial options. At the same time, vested interests in old criminal justice practices existed alongside emotional, habitual and ideological allegiances to them. In this climate, despite an appetite for the new, the development of probation services has necessarily been challenging. Despite this and the ‘turmoil’ in criminal justice which King and Piacentini (2005: 263) describe in the early-1990s, there has been progress and we turn to that now.

Recent developments

As Kalinin (2002) and Bowring (2009) point out, two developments in particular have helped to change the general climate in criminal justice in the Russian Federation. Firstly, accession to the Council of Europe in 1996 and secondly, in 1998, a shift in responsibility for criminal justice from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Justice. On becoming a member of the Council of Europe, the Russian Federation aligned its judicial systems with the European Convention of Human Rights and, although the relationship between Russia and the European Court of Human Rights has been fraught at times (Bowring, 2009), steps have been taken in relation to those aspects of legal process which are conducive to the development of probation services such as an independent judiciary and entitlement to representation on behalf of defendants. The transfer to the Ministry of Justice helped to steer criminal justice away from an orientation towards internal security and towards a culture of due process from which a Department of Alternative Sanctions could emerge in 2005.

In 1992, however, as King and Piacentini observe, the total volume of recorded crime was extremely low compared to England and Wales (King and Piacentini, 2005: 268). That volume has risen significantly since then (Zemlanskya, undated). Although the prison population has fallen since record levels of over a million in 2002 it remains high. These factors have stimulated interest in probation services on the part of a government keen to reduce the costs associated with imprisonment. However, at the same time, early public sympathy for prisoners, founded in experience of the illegitimacy of Soviet Gulag, has tended to give way to a desire for tough penalties (Zemlanskaya undated).

Community penalties have begun to emerge in the Russian Federation and, looking forwards in 2002, Kalinin wrote:

Some alternatives to deprivation of liberty which are provided for in the Criminal Code, in particular, compulsory work, restricted liberty and ‘arrest’ (that is, short sentences of between 2−6 months of the short-sharp-shock variety), have not yet been implemented.... On 10 January 2002, President Putin signed Federal Law No. 4-FZ, according to which punishments in the form of compulsory work will come into effect no later than 2004, of restricted liberty no later than 2005, and of ‘arrest’ no later than 2006. (Kalinin, 2002: 27)

However, as Zemlyanska (undated) points out, the lack of infrastructure to support staff in carrying out these interventions can render such announcements aspirational.

In terms of assessment, supervision, risk management and rehabilitative work, psychologists appeared early in the prison system (Piacentini and King, 2005) and are also to be found amongst probation officers in the community. Traditionally, their approach is of a modernist nature founded in clinical psychology and is arguably compatible with a Risk-Need-Responsivity or ‘What Works?’ empirical paradigm. Probation officers have also been recruited and in 2009 Harding was able to report a ‘total staff of 10,000 probation inspectors and 300 psychologists' (Harding, 2009).

Their existence and work represents real growth in the probation services from a standing start and attention now turns to the work of these pioneers.

The two probation initiatives

The two initiatives took place in Russia during the period between 2007 and 2009 and focused on the introduction of Russian probation practitioners to assessment skills and interventions in common use in England and Wales. However, the funding base and the scale of the initiatives could not have been more contrasting. By considering them together it hoped that a sense of probation in Russia at both the level of day-to-day practice and the level of policy formation will be conveyed.

The grassroots training programme in St Petersburg was organized by Citizens' Watch, a courageous human rights NGO with funding from sources including the Ford Foundation and the UK Consulate in St Petersburg (Citizen's Watch, 2011).

The larger project, undertaken in conjunction with the Russian Ministry of Justice, was sponsored by the EU in Moscow, who awarded a contract worth €2.3 million to an Italian company to develop alternative sanctions and to introduce a pilot model of electronic monitoring in the Perelshoye penal colony and later, with volunteer probationers, in the city of Voronezh. The primary beneficiary of the EU award was the Department of Alternative Sanctions (DAS) set up in 2005 by the Ministry of Justice. The team of four international experts collaborated with local Russian experts drawn from universities, NGOs, and Ministries. The objectives were clear: to advise the Ministry on matters of policy and legislation associated with alternative sanctions, including the training of judges, prosecutors, probation staff and fledgling NGOs in Russia; to explore best practice in management techniques and competence-based methods of staff development with the DAS; to improve intervention methods used by probation officers, setting particular store by risk management models, social learning courses for offenders and, finally, the delivery of training and good practice handbooks to the Russian staff involved in the roll out of electronic monitoring.

Grassroots training in St Petersburg

Following introductory seminars in 2007, a year-long training programme for probation officers was undertaken in St Petersburg in 2008/2009. The aim of the programme was to offer methods of working with offenders which officers might be able to use and evaluate in the context of their own practice. Over an initial five days, core methods of communication, engagement, motivation, assessment and intervention were introduced with case examples. Participants were encouraged to keep a record of their experiences of using material from the training sessions in their practice and their own case studies formed the basis of follow-up discussion sessions later in the programme. This initial training was followed two months later by a further three-day block in which new trainers addressed skills in group intervention and practices flowing from the ‘What Works?’ or ‘Risk, Need Responsivity’ tradition. After a similar interval, specialists in work with young offenders offered further training and the programme was completed by the trainers who delivered the initial five days who sought to work from the questions, experiences and requests of the participants. The training took place through translation in the premises of Citizens' Watch and a handbook was produced which drew, with their kind permission, on the work of Canton, Ferguson and Parker (2005).

The 27, predominantly female, participants engaged actively with the programmes and were keen to hear of practical, step-by-step, methods alongside references to real case studies. They were able to both understand the methods discussed and to seek to apply them in their work and it was through description of their own practice that a sense of day-to-day probation in Russia was conveyed most strongly. Typically, these probation officers carried very high caseloads, seeing most probationers quite infrequently and for short periods. They certainly experienced themselves as very hard pressed in ways frequently echoed by probation staff in England and Wales. However, by contrast, resources such as partner agency staff, standardized assessment tools and accredited intervention programmes were very limited indeed. Clearly this has implications for the sorts of practice methods which will be of realistic value to them. Probation officers in St Petersburg typically worked with offences of violence (including domestic violence), criminal damage and dishonesty, similar to low to medium risk cases in England and Wales. Alcohol and drug addiction, unemployment and difficulties with close relationships, featured very strongly amongst problems faced by probationers, and the proportions under supervision, seemed comparable with the English and Welsh caseloads in terms of age and gender. Russian colleagues also had responsibility towards separated parents who were failing to make maintenance payments.

A survey of responses to the training conducted by Citizens' Watch indicated a positive reaction on the part of the participants. Many were able to describe their practice and opportunities to integrate new ideas in compassionate, articulate and critical ways. A number of participants very reasonably felt that more training was needed and, in particular, that training in psychology was a necessary prerequisite to carrying out interventions which were based in cognitive psychology. Participants identified a number of obstacles to the implementation of the methods discussed: the fact that the legal basis for probation in Russia remained underdeveloped; the absence of reference to any of the methods taught in official Russian agency guidelines; the lack of time they had with individual probationers and the way in which the dismissive attitude of staff employed in other criminal justice agencies undermined their authority with those they supervised.

Whilst the immediate effects of the project were local, the training programme has now been extended to three further Russian regions. As a pilot, it offered important opportunities for learning about the realities of probation work in one part of Russia and about what content and methods might be most useful more generally. It also provided the chance to learn and to assess the benefits and drawbacks of ‘the direct transfer of practice’ (Canton, 2006: 510) from one jurisdiction to another as an approach to the development of probation services in Russia. Further work under the auspices of this programme will also afford an opportunity to explore the learning for English and Welsh probation practice from contact with Russian practice.

The Europe Union sponsored programme in Russia

The total DAS staff in Russia consisted of a Director General, his headquarters staff with approximately 10,000 probation officers and over 300 psychologists allocated to the 48 regions of Russia with an overall population of 140 million. Under recent legislation, probation officers are responsible for a variety of community-based sanctions including probation and unpaid work, mainly with adult offenders over the age of 18. No single agency had been given the responsibility for the after-care of prisoners and their fate on release. Any services to ex-offenders depend on the response of regional governors which, in practice, can be meagre and inconsistent.

The EU programme experts made similar observations to the St Petersburg trainers. Most probation officers had a basic degree from a Regional Criminal Justice Institute, but they had little grounding in probation practice and limited knowledge of interventions. Likewise, they have little status in the criminal justice setting and workloads are often in excess of 100 offenders for each probation officer. The experts delivered basic training in group work interventions in a number of different cities in Russia using manuals and handbooks which were translated into Russian. The focus of the training was on offending behaviour, anger management, the employment and educational difficulties of offenders and drug education. The training was greeted with enthusiasm and a readiness on the part of probation officers to learn of new approaches which they hoped to apply in practice.

Much of DAS progress at the local or regional level, is dependent on the cooperation of district judges and prosecutors. It was here that, as outsiders, we became most aware of the lack of strategic and joined up thinking in the form of Russian criminal justice processes. Judge Radchenko, a former Deputy Supreme Court Judge, told the co-author that the Russian criminal code is littered with good laws which have not been properly implemented in practice. Ministries, which should be concerned with the effective cooperation of criminal justice services, tended to act in silos with little cross-fertilization of effort in relation to achieving the objectives of the legislation.

Discussions with Russian academics responsible for the training of judges, prosecutors and advocates, suggested that the subject and relevance of alternative sanctions, rarely featured with any prominence on in-service training programmes. Judge Radchenko, a probation advocate, talked about the irreversibility of prison and the need for Russian judges to achieve a cultural shift in their thinking about alternatives. He reminded us that over 5 million citizens were sent to prison between 1992 to 2007. Seventy per cent would reoffend within two years of release. Tellingly, of the 820,000 prisoners, over 250,000 were in pre-trial detention sometimes for over a year. 70,000 of this group will be released on sentence in court.

The Russian beneficiaries of the EU contract were particularly positive about the electronic monitoring pilot in a penal colony. An Israeli company, Elmotech, had been commissioned by the EU to supply ankle bracelets as part of a pilot project. On the assumption of a satisfactory outcome from the pilot model, justice officials in the Ministry prepared legislation particularly focused on the introduction of electronic monitoring conditions that might reduce the number of pre-trial detainees who could be placed at home rather than in a penal colony.

The penal colony staff oversaw with outside aid from the project and Elmotech the successful introduction of electronic monitoring with a small cohort of serving prisoners who were released on a daily basis on outside work parties. Later, bracelets were tested in the city of Voronezh, with volunteer probationers. Again, the limited experience proved successful. Throughout the passage of experimentation, assigned experts helped train local staff on the management of electronic monitoring and offered advice to the Chief Legal adviser to the Duma, in terms of legislation. By the end of 2009, electronic monitoring measures were approved by the Russian Parliament. However, the measure still awaits implementation at the court level. There have been delays in the manufacture of bracelets by a Russian Electronics company. Additionally, there has been some uncertainty as to which agency will undertake operational responsibility for electronic monitoring. Logically, the DAS is the best placed agency to carry out such a task but such is the nature of power politics within the Russian Federation, that outcomes are uncertain. If there is a co-operative will between the agencies responsible for criminal justice, the Russian Ministry of Justice could make substantial inroads into the number of pre-trial detainees by safely lodging alleged offenders at home with electronic monitoring conditions.

The EU programme also sought to expose leading Russian criminal justice officials to policies and practices within the mainstream European probation tradition. They chose to come to England and Wales with its hundred year probation history and Bulgaria, an ex-communist state, with a six-year-old probation service, which has benefited from two spells of EU funding and short term collaboration with probation staff members in England and Wales. These visits confirmed the importance of staff development and strategies based on risk assessment and evidence based practice, all key elements in the Council of Europe's Probation Rules published in 2009. Interestingly, Russian correctional officials had already absorbed best practice measures advocated in European Prison Rules published by the Council of Europe in 2006. Indeed, new prison establishments in Russia have attempted to incorporate the best features of the new Rules.

Officials from Russia were particularly impressed by the OASys risk assessment model. Russian probation and prison services have no nationwide assessment tool parallel with OASys. Towards the end of the project, a leading OASys manager from the Ministry of Justice in London, advised Russian criminologists about the development of the model.

Following the visit to the UK in April 2009 the Federal Corrections Director, Oleg Kalinin agreed to host an international conference in Ryazan which explored the possibility of Russia becoming a full member of the CEP, the European Probation Federation. A central feature of the conference focused on a presentation of the Council of Europe's Probation Rules by Professor Robert Canton and a review of the EU project findings over the previous two years.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to portray, in snapshot form, two different but complementary initiatives at the macro and micro level involving policy makers, managers and practitioners in contemporary Russian probation practice. Russia often presents two faces to the West. At one level we are aware of the politicization of the law in Russia and, in particular, with high-profile cases like the twice sentenced billionaire Khordokovsky, and the lack of transparency in relation to the press and the media following such cases. On the other hand, President Mevedev has made a serious pronouncements in recent years on Russian over-dependence on the use of prison, its high costs both in terms of new buildings and the waste of human potential and the need for alternative sanctions that are credible, challenging and sustainable.

Russia is a full member of the Council of Europe, its Judges sit at the European Court of Human Rights and often find against their judicial colleagues in Russia in relation to pre-trial detention issues and fair trials. Russian representatives on the Council of Europe have signed up to European Prison Rules and European Probation Rules. They are knowledgeable about the operation of criminal justice and alternative sanctions in the West. They welcome exchange visits and the opportunity to share research findings in order to strengthen their understanding of good practice, both in relation to prison and community-based programmes. They lack, however, the healthy traditions of a flourishing voluntary sector, working with offenders and their families, which not only adds value to public sector services but also contributes a critical edge.

The two programmes discussed here illustrate the enormous potential for probation practice to contribute to the emerging shape of criminal justice in the Russian Federation. There is a clear need to support practitioners at the level of legislation and policy, to bolster their authority in an often skeptical environment and to support the development of a Russian tradition in practice. In working alongside Russian colleagues it seems important to bear clearly in mind that probation practices do not transfer in simple ways across cultures, that probation practices in any jurisdiction are contested and changing and that the learning is reciprocal. The commitment and quality of Russian probation staff provides a reason to be hopeful that probation will flourish in Russia.