Verification of Reports on Prison-Related Crimes in the Context of Ensuring the Rights and Legitimate Interests of Convicts

Introduction: the article considers problematic issues related to the participation of penal system officials in procedural activities to verify reports of crimes committed by convicted persons, accused persons, and suspects in correctional institutions, and puts forward proposals aimed at improving the effectiveness of these activities. Our arguments are directly related to the following: determining the moment from which the calculation of the terms of such an inspection should begin, assessing the expediency of such an inspection, actual content of the procedural actions it contains and participation of the defender in them. We come to the conclusion that penal system officials are not sufficiently motivated to use the procedural powers of the body of inquiry and participate in pre-trial proceedings in criminal cases. Moreover, they are often poorly prepared to participate in criminal procedural activities; this fact not only entails violations of the rights and legitimate interests of convicts, but also allows the latter to avoid criminal liability for new crimes committed on the territory of a correctional institution. The fact that many heads of penitentiary institutions are afraid that the number of criminally punishable actions in the territories under their control would increase also has a negative impact on the quality of procedural activity. As a result, the official criminal statistics mainly show only those prison-related offences, which cannot be hushed up. Methods: we make the following classification of the problems of responding to various violations of criminal law prohibitions by persons sentenced to imprisonment, as well as suspects and accused persons held in custody: 1) problems related to the reasons for initiating a criminal case; 2) problems related to the reasons for initiating a criminal case; 3) problems related to checking the reports of prison-related offences; 4) problems related to the adoption of final procedural decisions and the provision of qualified legal assistance to convicted persons in the implementation of verification actions. Taking into account the specifics of the problems, we put forward the ways to overcome and solve these problems. Discussion: the latency of prison offences has been and remains quite high, and the procedural activity itself carried out in connection with their commission is very far from ideal. In such conditions, there is a growing need for timely and professional response on the part of officials of correctional institutions (including pre-trial detention centers) to various violations of criminal law prohibitions committed by persons sentenced to imprisonment, as well as suspects and accused persons held in custody. Results: we prove that the above-mentioned response is mandatory and has a number of specific features, primarily due to the environment in which it is carried out.