The Legal and Illegal Use of Force by Prison Officers in Ukraine

• Published date: 01 January 2019
• Date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0032885518814728
• Author: Anton Symkovych
• Subject Matter: Articles

814728TPJXXX10.1177/0032885518814728The Prison JournalSymkovych
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The Prison Journal
2019, Vol. 99(1) 89 –111
The Legal and Illegal
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DOI: 10.1177/0032885518814728
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Officers in Ukraine
Anton Symkovych1
Abstract
Although prison order rarely rests on naked force, its availability defines
a prison. A penological truism holds that officers’ deployment of force
signals a breakdown in order, not normality. However, is the truism
universally valid? Adding evidence from a former Soviet bloc country,
the study examines the place of force in officers’ daily work in a men’s
medium-security prison in Ukraine. Drawing on a semiethnographic study,
the findings show that even though availability of force was central to
preventing escapes and securing prisoner compliance, its actual deployment
was relatively rare. Officers’ consideration and actual use of both legal and
illegal force depended on legal ramifications, the position of the superiors,
and prisoner reaction. It also reflected their views on the adequacy of
formal penal power and legitimacy of force for corrective purposes.
Keywords
force, prison officers, Ukraine, prison, correctional officers, lethal force
Introduction
Some prisons are more violent than others. Even so, research since
Sykes’s (1958) persuasively demonstrates that in prison work, force is
most effective when available, but used sporadically (Cheliotis, 2014;
1Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Corresponding Author:
Anton Symkovych, Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University, Nador u. 9,
Budapest 1051, Hungary.
Email: asymkovych@uj.ac.za

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Crewe, 2009; Sparks, Bottoms, & Hay, 1996). Prison officers rely on a
panoply of means to secure prisoner compliance and prevent escapes,
with each prison and prison officer developing a style and method to
maintain order (Crawley, 2004; Kauffman, 1988; McDermott & King,
1988). How prisons and officers deploy power largely depends on the
legal framework, institutional culture, and the sensibilities of the wider
society, not to mention individual differences (Hepburn, 1985; Liebling,
2004; Liebling & Price, 2001; Sparks et al., 1996). To date, much of our
understanding of the role of force in the routine maintenance of prison
order1 comes from research in the “West”; we know very little about the
situation elsewhere, apart from human rights reports and media headlines.
However, expanding the focus to non-“Western” contexts is critical if we
are to ascertain whether what we currently understand about power and
order in prisons is merely “local truth” (Nelken, 2010) or is valid in dif-
ferent cultural settings. For example, non-“Western” prisons often have
less external oversight and a wider disconnect between legal safeguards
and their practical observance than prisons in the “West” (Birkbeck, 2011;
Martin, 2014). Responding to the calls by Birkbeck (2011) and Wacquant
(2002) to assemble cross-cultural descriptive and ethnographic data, the
objective in this article is to redress this lack of knowledge by introducing
the case of Ukraine following the collapse of Soviet Communism.
Analyzing data from a semiethnographic study in a medium-security
prison for men, I argue that even though availability of force was central
to preventing escapes and securing prisoner compliance in this particular
prison, its deployment was relatively rare and often resulted from officers
feeling disempowered.
To support this argument, I first review the literature that points to the
need for power sharing and negotiating order to reduce reliance on force. In
the next section, I explain the Ukrainian prison system, describe the prison in
which I conducted my fieldwork, and explain the research methodology.
Finally, I present and discuss my findings on the officers’ use of legal lethal,
legal nonlethal, and illegal force.
Force and Negotiated Prison Order
In this article, force means purposeful physical actions with an immediate
impact on another person’s body either via direct contact or through devices,
such as batons, handcuffs, restraining clothes, or, in extreme cases, a bullet.
Often in the public’s view and in academic literature, social control in
prison rests on force (Crawley, 2004; King & Elliott, 1977; Liebling &

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91
Price, 2001). A plethora of studies highlight that both officers and prisoners
favor or actually use violence to control or resist each other (Fleisher, 1989;
Marquart, 1986). Many researchers stress that prison social order draws on
manifold factors, such as measures and routines, whereby force is not nec-
essarily systematic or excessive (Bottoms, 1999; Crawley, 2004; Karklins,
1989; Sykes, 1958). Even so, the possibility of the use of force forms the
core of the organization and operation of imprisonment (Crewe, 2009;
Sparks et al., 1996; Stojkovic, 1986; Sykes, 1958). Nonetheless, Sykes
(1958) and subsequent commentators have argued, convincingly, that exer-
cising force can be effective as a short-term measure and to control a lim-
ited number of people (e.g., Foucault, 1975; Hepburn, 1985; Karklins,
1989; Kauffman, 1988).
Leaving “supermax” prisons aside, many prisons around the world entail
staff–prisoner face-to-face interactions (Cheliotis, 2014; Crewe, 2009;
Liebling, 2004; Mathiesen, 1965; Piacentini, 2004). In such prisons, offi-
cers have to rely, to a greater or lesser degree, on relationships and cultivate
social order with prisoners (Bandyopadhyay, Jefferson, & Ugelvik, 2013;
Crewe, 2009; Liebling, 2004; McDermott & King, 1988; Sparks et al.,
1996; Sykes, 1958; Symkovych, 2018a). This proximity and interdepen-
dency militates against the sustained, excessive, or indiscriminate use of
force. This does not imply that officer violence and “sheer thuggery”
(Crewe, 2009) are rare in the “West” (Marquart, 1986) or elsewhere (Slade,
2016). Nonetheless, although the public imagination, fuelled by media
reports, seems to envision prison officers as all too eager to use force
against prisoners, studies underscore that many officers are wary of deploy-
ing force (Bottoms, 1999; Liebling, 2004; Sparks et al., 1996).
Ukraine’s Prison System
On October 1, 2018, Ukraine’s prison system consisted of 29 remand, 11
minimum-, 59 medium-, and seven maximum-security prisons, as well as
11 women’s prisons, six minors’ prisons, and 21 correctional centers, hold-
ing 55,901 people, including 11,991 on remand (Ukrainian Penitentiary
Service [UkrPS], 2018).2 Since 2000, the Ukraine’s prison population rate
has drastically decreased from 443 to 157 per 100,000 population—com-
pared with Poland’s 194 and Russia’s 402 (Institute for Criminal Policy
Research, 2018). Ukraine continuously introduces new legal safeguards for
those in custody, although their implementation in situ always lags behind,
and allegations of ill-treament and torture are not unusual (European
Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment [CPT], 2015). Prisoners have rights to lodge

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The Prison Journal 99(1)
complaints to prison authorities and other governmental bodies and to file
suits in national and extranational courts. The office of the Parliamentary
Human Rights Ombudsman, overseeing prosecutors, NGOs, as well as
international monitoring bodies, such as the Committee Against Torture
(CAT), regularly visit prisons and receive individual prisoners. Although
some anachronistic Soviet prison regime restrictions remain, many have
been lifted or relaxed (Symkovych, 2018a, 2018c).
Most Ukrainian prisoners have underprivileged backgrounds. In 2018,
2.27% of prisoners had tuberculosis and 6% had HIV (Prison Portal of
Donetsk Memorial, 2018). This contributed to the CAT’s (2014) concern with
health conditions and mortality rates in Ukrainian prisons. More than half are
convicted of property crimes; 16% are convicted of murder, 7% of grievous
bodily assault, and 1.6% of rape (UkrPS, 2018).
The UkrPS, which currently encompasses prison and probation services
and de jure constitutes a department within the Ministry of Justice, employs
37,000 staff, chiefly uniformed (UkrPS, 2018). General understaffing of
13.6% led the CAT to urge the Ukrainian government to increase the pris-
oner/staff ratio to tackle interprisoner violence (CAT, 2014, para 19.b).
The Study
The Prison
The UkrPS allowed my research in what it considers its flagship prison,
where officers from all other Ukrainian prisons regularly undergo “practical
training,” while attending induction or refresher courses in the nearby UkrPS
Training Academy. This medium-security prison for sentenced men serves
the capital and the Kyiv region. On one ordinary day in February 2017, the
prison housed 636 prisoners. Of these, 22% were under 30 years old, 48%
between 30 and 40 years old, 25% between 40 and 55 years old, 3% between
55 and 60 years old, and 2% above 60 years. Of these, 0.35% were serving
sentences below 1 year, 5% between 1 and 2 years, 16.5% between 2 and 3
years, 42% between 3 and 5 years, 26.9% between 5 and 8 years, 4.75%
between 8 and 10 years, and 4.5% were serving sentences ranging between
10 and 15 years. In terms of offense, 0.7% were convicted of rape, 6.1% of
premeditated murder, 34.15% of burglary and robbery (rozbíy and hrabízh),
...