On compulsory labour of prisoners

The concept of the development of the penal system in the Russian Federation until 2020 (as amended by Order No. 1877-r of the Government of the Russian Federation of September 23, 2015) was supplemented with the task of working out the issue of excluding the compulsory labour of convicts from the legislation. The duty of convicts to work, established from the first years of Soviet power, has survived to this day. Developing various versions of penal codes resulted in ambiguous decisions of the labour compulsion issue. Some scholars (A.S. Mikhlin, V.I. Seliverstov, A.I. Zubkov, N.A. Struchkov, V.D. Filimonov and others) believed that convicts sentenced to deprivation of liberty must work. Other scientists (V.A. Utkin, N.I. Lankin, A.K. Muzenik, L.M. Prozumentov, etc.) suggested the idea of volunteer work of prisoners. The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners of 1955 has refused from the formula that “convicts must work” and stated that “convicts should be able to work and / or take an active part in their rehabilitation; convicts should be given useful work sufficient to fill a normal working day” (Mandela's Rules of 2015). It is obvious that the convicts do not have the right to work in conditions of deprivation of liberty. In the Soviet period, this right was determined by the Constitution. Nowadays, neither international legal acts nor the executive legislation of the Russian Federation provide the convict with the right to work and only determine the limits of freedom of labour. Absolute identity of the penal and labour relations is a poorly achievable task. It is sufficient to have at least one significant (voluntariness, reimbursement) and any number of optional features to ascertain the fact of labour relations. If such a combination is achieved, we can say that it is essentially labour relations. Relations connected with the labour of convicts in places of deprivation of liberty are labour relations, the Penal Code of the Russian Federation must establish special grounds for their occurrence, development (changes) and termination. It will bring the relations connected with the labour of convicts close to labour relations, limiting their form to exemptions made in the penal legislation. At the moment, there is no developed system of diverse jobs, which makes it difficult to implement incentives for conscientious attitude to work. Neither the Concept for the Development of the Penitentiary System of the Russian Federation until 2020 nor the current level of development of the penal system makes it possible to conclude that the legislator is ready to exclude compulsory labour of convicts in places of deprivation of liberty from the Penal Code.

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