phone cards, request cigarettes or forcedly take other prisoners’ cigarettes, or extort money. Other
causes of conflicts may be religious beliefs, ethnicity and communication problems caused by the
language barrier. The practice of transferring prisoners from one cell to another due to conflicts with
cellmates is common in the facilities, which indicates that a certain number of prisoners do not feel
safe in their cells.
According to prisoners, if prison staff do not personally witness inter-prisoner conflict in Establishment
No. 15, they may never learn about it. Inter-prisoner conflicts are resolved by "watchers". In semiopen facilities, "watchers" are divided according to regions, floors, wings and other spaces. Accordingly,
the so-called "zone" issues are resolved by an informal leader, while the issues of those employed in the
penitentiary establishment are regulated by a brigadier. When a case is resolved by "watchers", certain
prisoners may be physically abused, degraded, expelled from the prison community or forced to move
to the category of prisoners, which they believe, have a lower status.
Inter-prisoner psychological violence
In addition to physical violence, facilities are also characterized by forms of severe psychological
violence. This problem is especially acute in semi-open institutions, where criminal subculture is quite
strong. Due to the fear of repression, prisoners follow informal rules, as if they do not do so, they may
be expelled from the prison community, communication with them may become unacceptable for
other prisoners, which leads to the loss of dignity, status and respect.
There are cases in closed facilities, when certain prisoners try to control their cellmates and
psychologically abuse them. One of the prisoners misappropriated items intended for common use in
Establishment No. 8. The Special Preventive Group was informed that one prisoner in the same facility
was trying to control his cellmates and impose his rules. Namely, he was trying to force others to give
him their cards68 so that he could decide what to buy and how to arrange the cell. As he had good
contacts inside and outside the facility, prisoners were afraid of him. According to prisoners, those with
limited finances are forced to be noisy in the cell in order to achieve they transfer to another cell. In
similar cases, prisoners are usually first taken to an internal classification cell and then to another cell.
Prisoners often change thier cells as a result of conflicts. The above is the only resource of prison staff
to prevent conflicts. The monitoring showed that prisoners with mental health disorders placed
together with other prisoners in Establishment No. 8. are often harassed, humiliated, abused, denied
food, forced to do degrading things or even hit in head, which results in conflicts, after which, they are
transferred to the de-escalation room or the safe cell. The Special Preventive Group learned that
68
A card with nominal amount of money, which is individually handed over to each convict.
39
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