Official denounces prison system: Teenage suicides caused by sentencing delays

RIGA - Speaking at a conference on pre-trial detention in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union a top official in Latvia's prison system poured scorn on his country's justice system and urged prompt action to alleviate the plight of prisoners, many of them juveniles, imprisoned for as long as four years without trial.

Aleksanders Tochelovskis, deputy director of the Latvian prison administration, blamed the previously unreported suicides of two juveniles this year on a system that produces many statements of good intent but no money for their implementation.

"At the beginning of 1999, 30 per cent of prisoners in Latvia were awaiting trial. That figure has now risen to 42 percent," he said.

"If this continues our prisons will soon be full of inmates awaiting trial."

Juveniles suffer particularly long periods of pre-trial detention, Tochelovskis said. "Seventy-two percent of juveniles in Latvian prisons are awaiting trial. Of them, 70 percent are denied permission to correspond with their relatives. They are often denied the opportunity to work or to receive education. The six juveniles who have attempted suicide this year, two of them successfully, did so because of mental health problems caused by pre-trial detention periods which infringed their human rights. Such an indefinite stay in prison can break a person's life. You can imagine why a 15-year-old or 16-year-old resorts to suicide and, unfortunately, sometimes succeeds."

Currently 25 percent of juvenile inmates have been awaiting trial for six months to a year, 30 percent have been awaiting trial for over one year, and 6 percent for over two years, said Tochelovkis. Some have been awaiting trial for four years or longer, he added.

Tochelovskis also criticized prison conditions and a lack of support for released prisoners.

"Prisoners are sleeping in three-tier bunks as a result of overcrowding. Only 27 percent of them have anything to occupy their time. This is a tragedy not only for the prisoners but for the staff whose jobs are made more difficult as a result. We have to refuse all requests for help from those released from prison. After two or three months they're back inside. Government initiatives sound very favorable, but they are never implemented, and we get the blame."

With no concept of how to deal with AIDS in prisons, the number of HIV-infected prisoners is growing at an extraordinary rate, he said.

Prosecutor General Janis Maizitis, who sat beside Tochelovskis as he spoke, blamed Latvia's politicians for not addressing the problems of prisons and highlighted the lack of an effective bail system.

"Our politicians have not addressed the lack of a maximum time period for pre-trial detention in our criminal procedure," said Maizitis.

"This is not a normal situation. Criminal procedures should state the rights of detained people. Bail is only an option for the rich, due to conditions in our society."

Tochelovskis' speech was greeted warmly by the politicians, civil servants and representatives of non-governmental organizations from 16 countries in Riga for the conference, which was organized by the Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute in Budapest.

"It's not often that someone in your position sounds like a representative of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch," said moderator James Goldston of the Open Society Institute.

Tochelovskis' remarks echoed previous comments to the press by Vitolds Zahars, director general of the Latvian prison administration.