According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, there are currently 671,700 Russians serving sentences in penal establishments, of whom 59,000 are women. Only the USA and China have more female prisoners (over 200,000 and 100,000 respectively). According to human rights organisations, conditions in Russian prisons and prison camps are among the harshest in the world. The harsh climate is one obvious factor, but inadequate nutrition, physically demanding and low paid work, isolation in a punishment cell for the slightest misdemeanour, bullying, beatings, and other violence from prison staff are all also the norm.
Russia’s female prisoners
Women prisoners are usually too frightened to complain to the legal authorities or human rights groups, as this might trigger immediate and severe punishment. And it is not just the camp administration that exercises power over its population; there are also the ‘overseers’ – prisoners who take charge of the others in the same barracks. Some of these overseers work with the administration, but others refuse, preferring to observe their own ‘criminal code.’
A group of Russian female prisoners. ‘Overseers’ collect ‘tribute’ from their fellow prisoners and are responsible for ‘order’. But this ‘order’ has nothing in common with either the law of the land or the normal rules of human interaction. These are the rules of the criminal world, according to which it is shameful to work and honourable to thieve.
