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#11
Moscow Times
November 23, 2001
Russia's Prison Culture: Inside and Out
By Oksana Smirnova

Russian society as a whole functions according to the same rules and values that govern the closed society of its vast and overcrowded prison system.

Such is the conclusion of Anton Oleinik, a doctor of sociology, in his new book, Tyuremnaya subkultura v Rossii: ot povsednevnoi zhizni do gosudarstvennoi vlasti (Russia's Prison Subculture: From Everyday Life to State Power), published recently by INFRA-M.

Over the course of five years Oleinik conducted research in more than 50 prisons in Russia, Kazakhstan and France. The book that resulted was first published as a scientific study in France and Italy. Oleinik said that the Russian edition had been adapted for a wider readership of "people who are concerned about the problems of our society."

INFRA-M puts out some 60 titles per month. But spokesperson Galina Tabachnikova said that Oleinik's book was clearly a cut above the rest. Expecting a strong public response, INFRA-M scheduled the book launch at Moscow's high-security Butyrka Prison. Among the invited guests was Deputy Justice Minister Yury Kalinin.

That plan was abandoned after a spate of escapes from Butyrka, however. The book launch took place at the House of Journalists. Despite this change, Oleinik made clear that his research would have been impossible without the cooperation of the Russian Interior and Justice ministries.

Oleinik's work consists of two main aspects. The first is a statistical analysis based on more than 50 interviews with prison inmates, and an overview of the penal systems of Russia, Kazakhstan and France. Oleinik then explains how prisoners in Russia are divided into formal and informal categories. He offers a detailed analysis of the informal prison hierarchy, breaking it into three basic groups: blatniye, elite prisoners who make the rules and enforce the norms of this society; muzhiki, the second rank, prisoners who strive to maintain their autonomy in this society through labor; and the shestyorki, six groups of prisoners variously beholden to and abused by the "blatniye."

In Oleinik's view, Russia's post-Soviet prison reforms have proven more successful than reforms in other spheres. For one thing, the prison reforms built on positive aspects of the existing system, rather than trying to start from scratch.

One result of this approach was the increased use of informal supervisors, called smotryashchiye, or watchers, drawn from the prison population.

"The 'smotryashchy' is a prisoner entrusted to help maintain order in the prison from day to day," Oleinik writes. He functions as a mediator in conflicts between inmates, but his decisions carry no legal weight. Nevertheless, the system has helped prison officials to keep the peace. Oleinik writes that smotryashchiye now exist in every barracks and work crew.

The second part of Oleinik's book compares prison culture with society on the outside. The author writes that Russia imprisons its citizens more frequently than just about any other country. Russia's prisons constitute a separate society, with its own language, culture, social categories, values and norms.

But one of the paradoxes of Russian society, Oleinik writes, is "the similarity between the prison community and the society around it." Drawing on the research of social psychologists, Oleinik argues that everyday Russian life is filled with "elements typical of the socio-psychological makeup of the prison inmate." He points to the common use of prison slang, or fenya, in everyday speech. Who could forget President Vladimir Putin's famous prison-yard comment about "rubbing out [Chechen rebels] in the outhouse" (mochit v sortire)?

But the similarity goes deeper. Oleinik writes that the level of trust in government among inmates is roughly the same as in the population at large, about 10 percent. And the inmate's creed of "no trust, no fear, no questions" is reflected in the "every man for himself" attitude prevalent on the outside. Oleinik observes that Russian citizens feel that they have no defense against arbitrary abuses in any encounter with the authorities.

In the introduction to the French edition of Oleinik's book, Alain Touraine, a professor at Paris' School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, writes that Russia conceives of itself as a "small society" ruled by mat (foul language) and blat (access to privileges). Only when Russians do away with blat and stop speaking in mat -- when the schism between public and private life is closed -- will this country have a truly open society.

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