Report on the visit to the Bucharest - Rahova penitentiary

On November 12-th, 2002, two representatives from APADOR -CH visited the Bucharest - Rahova penitentiary.

The association representatives had in view, as objectives, a short discussion with the director of the penitentiary, the visiting of the food section, a sector meant for serving disciplinary punishments with isolation and restrictive regime and a discussion with the detainees Cristian - Alexanndru Bamfi, Florea Drăgan and Paul Surdu.

1.     The discussion with the director of the penitentiary

On the date of the visit, there were 1991 detainees there, out of which 145 were women (140 adults and 5 minors), 153 minors, 806 recidivists and 1032 non-recidivists.

The penitentiary is one of the very few in Romania that does not have to face the phenomenon of overcrowding. For a normal capacity of 2174 places, as per the total number of detainees, there results an “occupying index” of 91.58%. On the penitentiary agricultural farm from Bragadiru, there were hosted 40 detainees who were under guardless conditions.

Starting with September this year, a number of 30 detainees have been employed for constructions on a building site belonging to the Autonomous Administration “The Official Gazette”.

The number of the detainees sentenced for life was of 37, all of them being hosted by one section. The director made clear the fact that, at the penitentiary managing level, this detainee category is paid special attention. The cultural - educational department has special programmes carried out with them, aiming especially at a good knowledge of them, of their problems and needs. During the last months, the life sentenced detainees participated in activities which implied a mutual trust between them and the penitentiary staff. The leading board organized with all those detainees a meeting at the penitentiary club, and, on another occasion, they participated, together with other detainees belonging to other categories, in a theatre show staged within the penitentiary. Daily, they are taken out for their walk, uncuffed, and on Saturday and Sunday, they are allowed to play soccer. It is foreseen the arranging of a separate soccer ground, in order to create conditions for these detainees to be able to play soccer daily.

Inside the penitentiary, there is in course of developing an important investment of the General Penitentiary Directorate, that is the building up of a surgery hospital of their own. The hospital will cover, within this specific field, the needs of the penitentiary system, a fact which will avoid in the future the actual difficulties deriving from the hospitalising of the detainees in hospitals belonging to the Health Ministry network (the watching over the sick detainees, higher costs for the medical services, etc).

The representatives of the association were surprised to find out that there existed an order of the DGP which established the fact that there should be two rows of metal lattice works in the life detainees’ rooms.

The director of the penitentiary showed that since her arrival, in March 2002, there have been used, in absolutely no case, any chains for immobilizing the detainees.

2.     The visit inside the food sector

The menu of the day was the following: in the morning - for the common and the diet (194 helpings), tea, cheese, marmalade and biscuits (the diabetics were given eggs and milk); for lunch - for the common and the diet, vegetable soup and potato stew with meat; in the evening - for the common, pasta with sauce and pork meat, and for the diet, pasta with milk. For lunch and supper, there were taken out from the warehouse 99 kg of pork meat, 51 kg of meat sub - products and 100 kg of bacon.

For the second course of the common menu, there were practically only bacon slices (although the quantity of meat registered into the accounting documents was equal to that of bacon), and the “meat” for the second course from the diet, which was placed in a separate recipient, meant almost only bones and fat. The “meat” for preparing supper, which was placed in the refrigerator, meant also almost only fat.

Within the penitentiary, there were also cooked about 800 helpings for the lockups of the Capital Police lockups.

3.     The visit inside the isolation and restrictive regime rooms.

The rooms for isolation, three in number, are identically arranged: no windows, therefore no natural light, a concrete bed and a Turkish WC, inside the room, without being separated from the rest of the room by absolutely anything. In the APADOR - CH opinion, the using of the WC under such circumstances places the detainees under a degrading treatment. As a similar treatment there can also be considered the fact that no natural light gets into the room and that the airing of the room can be done only when the overseers open the room door (the door opens into the hall of the section and it has two rows of metal lattices fitted on it). The very bad conditions from isolation are made even worse when, from early morning till late evening, the detainees have their bed linen, blankets and pillows taken off.

In the restrictive regime room, there was only one detainee, Georgica Milea, aged 20 (the room had 4 beds). The sanitary facilities consisted of a separate room endowed with a shower, a concrete pipe with three taps and a cabin with a Turkish WC. Based on the data held by the penitentiary leading board, it results that, in the autumn of 2001, Georgica Milea would have killed, in the Jilava penitentiary where he was imprisoned, a detainee,

(he was imprisoned at Jilava a previous attempted murder). The director of the penitentiary made it clear that when he came to Rahova, in the summer of this year, Milea was practically in a state of  “animality” (he was like a “hunted animal”, quite scared when he saw the non - coms, unable to talk or to communicate in any way with anybody). According to the penitentiary staff, during the months spent at Rahova, Milea “made great progress” especially in the sense that the presence of the non - coms did not scare him anymore and the educators and other staff members could communicate with him to a certain extent. The APADOR - CH representatives found out that the detainee had serious problems of speaking (when he was asked a question, he could hardly utter some syllabuses) and that he was practically in a state of total unconsciousness (he could hardly tell even his name, how old he was, for what offence he was in the penitentiary and in the respective room, etc). The association representatives expressed doubts as concerned the measure taken against Milea  - restrictive regime - especially in the sense that it could be justified in any way, including the aspect of its effectiveness. The argument of the staff was that if he were kept together with the other detainees, Milea could be a threat for his mates or these could abuse him (including sexually, as the case seemingly was in the Jilava penitentiary). According to the penitentiary representatives, as part of the first trial by which he was sentenced for attempted murder, the forensic expert appraisal established that Milea had a “diminished discernment”. But, from what the APADOR - CH representatives found out, and the explanations of the psychologist of the penitentiary and of other staff members, there almost surely resulted the fact that Milea completely lacked discernment.  The hosting of the detainee in the restrictive regime room seems to be without any other alternative, especially under the circumstances when in Romania there is no adequate legislative and institutional background which would judicially and medically cure such cases like Ggeorgica Milea’s. A circumstance which multiplies the question marks regarding this case, is that since the transferring of the detainee to the Rahova penitentiary, for about four or five months, the Prosecution department has done no inquiries which would concern him in any way as regards the supposed murder that he would have committed in the Jilava penitentiary.

At the club of the detainees sentenced for life, there were two detainees who had just prepared themselves to start a pool game. From the discussion carried out with them, there could be seen that they were rather satisfied with the conditions of the place and the behaviour of the staff. They go out for their walk, from Monday till Sunday, for about two hours. They can go to the club once in two days to play pool, table tennis and chess or for taking lessons of Romanian, English (with one of their mates) or mathematics. Some of them work Goblin tapestry and accessories for the theatre plays staged by the detainees in the penitentiary. The lady psychologist periodically carries out activities with them by groups made up depending on the detainees’ preferences, their personalities and needs. It was rather cold inside the room, as, until the date of the visit, the heating had not been set working yet.

4.     The discussion with the detainees Cristian - Alexandru Bamfi and Florea Drăgan

On October 28-th, 2002, while the mates in the room were watching a soccer match on the TV, Cristian - Alexandru Bamfi, who said he had stomach aches, beat on the bars from the room asking the overseer to take him out to the infirmary. The overseer reproached him with his beating too persistently on the bars and that he would have sworn at him. In reality, however, the detainee said, he had sworn at one of his roommates. Disturbed by what had happened, the non - com (“Mr. Paul”) entered the room and ordered all the detainees to jump out of their beds and lie face down on the floor. As he had not been able to do what the non - com had ordered, Dragan Florea, a detainee who was 60 of age, was pulled out of bed by the non - com, from the second level of beds, fell down on the cement floor and broke his right foot heel. After he fell down from his bed, the detainee also received two kicks in his ribs from the non - com. The leading board of the penitentiary characterized Dragan Florea like a detainee who ”caused no problems to us”.

As he was feeling increasingly worse, Cristian - Alexandru Bamfi was taken, during the night, to the infirmary and hence to one of the civilian hospitals from Bucharest (from the documents from the medical room one could not see clearly whether it was the University Hospital Bucharest or the Emergency Hospital Floreasca). At the hospital, it was found out that Bamfi was suffering from an acute gastroentherocolitis, a thing which showed that his insistence by asking the overseer to take him to the infirmary was fully justified.

And that circumstance made it practically non – understandable that Bamfi was disciplinarily punished with, neither more nor less, 10 days of isolation for “disrespectful attitude towards the staff”,on October 28-th.  Contrary to the DGP regulations for the respective issue, he was not  heard by the Discipline Commission. Moreover, the detainee learned about the offences he was charged with and the penalty he was to serve only at the moment when “an officer from the guard” came into his room and took him to the isolation room. From the medical record of the detainee one could see that Cristian - Alexandru Bamfi had also been taken once before to the hospital (the University Hospital Bucharest) showing “contusions with excoriations on his right hand”. By examining the record which was drawn up for him for the 10 days of isolation, the APADOR  - CH representatives have found out the missing of the most important issue of such records, that is the declaration of the punished one (or an indication that Bamfi had refused to give such a declaration). One of the many consequences - unjust ones, in the opinion of the association representatives - of the measures taken against Cristian - Alexandru Bamfi was also the separating of the four Bamfi brothers, who had been all in the same room until then, into four different rooms.

Florea Dragnea also reached, the same day, the hospital (the Emergency Hospital Floreasca) where, according to his declarations and the documents which the APADOR - CH representatives saw in the medical room, it was found out that he had a “fracture of the calcaneus” and his leg was immobilized in plaster for 45 days. On the date of the visit, the detainee was preparing himself to notice the Military Prosecution department with regard to the aggression inflicted by the non - com. He required from the medical department of the penitentiary to ensure for him the medicines he needed, as his family had no possibilities to buy them.

5.     The discussion with the detainee Paul Surdu

The detainee informed the APADOR - CH representatives that, for about four months and a half, he had been forbidden, without his being told why, to receive table visits (which the detainees who raise no problems at all benefit from) and he was registered among those who were allowed to receive only “cabin” visits (the detainees considered as “dangerous” and, according to DGP Order no. 3320 of November 12-th, 2001, the “drug addicted” detainees). The staff from the records department showed to the association representatives a typified form entitled “Declaration” drawn up on May 14-th, 2002, at the Jilava penitentiary hospital and signed by Paul Surdu, by which he would have admitted that he was a “drug addict”. (Initially, the association representatives had been told that the detainee would have been considered as a drug addict on the basis of an annotation from the front cover of the record, which had been made by the policemen of the police Station 14 from Bucharest). Paul Surdu had insisted, during the discussion with the association representatives, that he was no drug addict and that, at the penitentiary hospital Jilava, he had been really asked if he had been on drugs or not, but his answer had been a negative one. The representatives of the guard and treatment department and those from the records department also reasoned Surdu’s being categorized as a drug consumer by a decision of sanctioning the detainee, dated May 25-th, 2001, for injecting into himself a “white dust”. Only, from the documents of the record, it did not result, and neither could the respective staff produce any evidence in that respect, that the “white dust” would have been a narcotic. On the other hand, for the association representatives, it was rather evident that the prosecutor of the penitentiary had admitted the detainee’s contestation and that he had changed the punishment the discipline commission applied to him, 10 days of severe isolation, to … verbal reprimand. It must be further on stressed upon the fact that Paul Surdu was not to be found in the evidence records of the medical service regarding the drug addict detainees. As against this situation, the APADOR - CH representatives had to take into consideration two hypotheses. The first one, that the form signed by Paul Surdu was wrongly filled in by carelessness, and the second one, that the changing, fictively done, to the category of the drug addicts (and his being severely kept under surveillance during the visits) was in connection with the complaints he had submitted to the Military Prosecution department against certain staff members from the Rahova penitentiary who, some longer time ago, had beaten him up. In favour of the second hypothesis, it also seemed to be the circumstance that Paul Surdu was repeatedly punished for ”disrespectful attitude against the staff”.

6.     Conclusions

Under certain aspects that the APADOR - CH representatives had in view, there have been found out certain improvements as compared to the previous visit of September 20-th, 2000. The association considers that the increased attention of the present penitentiary leading board paid to the category of detainees sentenced for life is as welcome as possible, especially as concerns the busy keeping of their time. Also, the fact that during March, this year, at the same time with the appointing of the present director, the penitentiary staff completely gave up using chains against the detainees is worthwhile noticing.

APADOR - CH considers as unjust - and evidently non - statutory from the point of view of the disciplinary procedures - the sanctioning of the detainee Cristian - Alexandru Bamfi. The association representatives have found out that the practice of punishing the detainees for “ disrespectful attitude” against the staff goes on and that, at the level of the discipline commission and of the leading board of the penitentiary, it is further on a priority to pay more attention to the overseers’ not being excessive and subjective in their relationships with the detainees. The association considers as unjust the punishing of the detainee Cristian - Alexanndru Bamfi with 10 days of isolation, especially under the circumstances when his demand of being urgently taken to the medical room proved to be completely legitimate.

APADOR - CH requires from the penitentiary leading board to make own inquiries in the case of the aggression on the detainee Florea Drăgan , to take the needed measures and to facilitate for the detainee the noticing of the Military Prosecution department.

The association considers that it is quite possible that the unjustified changing of the detainee Paul Surdu to the category of the drug addicts  (and also to the “cabin visited” ones) could be connected to the complaints he addressed to the Military Prosecution department against the staff members who had beaten him up.  The association requires from the leading board of the penitentiary to analyse the detainee’s situation, to decide on the measures needed to be taken and to discourage the resentful and hampering behaviour of the staff against him.

APADOR - CH considers it necessary that the penitentiary should carry out the needed procedures so that the authorities would clarify the charge against the detainee Ggeorgica Milea as to murdering one of his mates in the Jilava penitentiary. It is needed that the penitentiary should go on, based on its own possibilities, with the “recovering” and the care taking of this detainee.

The association considers that it is necessary to rearrange the isolation rooms, as the actual conditions from within these spaces are equivalent to an inhuman and degrading treatment.

It is also necessary that greater attention should be paid to the using of the whole feeding supply quantity, especially of meat, for the preparing of the detainees’ food. As compared to the previous visit, the food looks better, but the almost total lack of meat has still remained the same serious problem.

Manuela Ştefănescu
Valerian Stan