REPORT on the visit to the Tichilesti Re-education Centre for Juveniles
CRM Tichilesti is a combination of penitentiary and re-education centre for juveniles on the one hand and a detention place for minors and adults on the other. At the time of this visit, 222 of the 505 persons detained at Tichilesti were adults (almost a half, therefore). They were divided into 5 work groups (3 under a semi-open regime, a group of adults under regular supervision and a group of youth aged 18 to 21, also under regular supervision. Adult detainees brought to Tichilesti to work are selected from those with small punishments, good behaviour and eventually a short-term left to serve until release. The youth (18 to 21 years of age) are the minors admitted to the Tichilesti centre who have come of age and remained in this centre instead of being transferred to a penitentiary for adults. CRM Tichilesti management said that the minors and the adults hardly meet (except for the visits) and that the detention sections are completely separate. The same thing happens with the youngsters aged 18 to 21, who are not regarded as part of CRM.
Most minors are aged 16 to 17, but several are under 16 and even younger. School classes are organised function of the students’ school situation, so that minors aged 14 to 18 can be included in the same class.
The educational measure of committing minors to one of the two CRMs in the country (Tichilesti covers Moldavia and Dobrogea and Gaiesti covers the rest of the country) is a decision made by the court. As this measure can be taken for persons under 18 (with the possibility to extend it up to the age of 21), regardless of the minor’s age when this decision is made, some juvenile criminals prefer to be sentenced to imprisonment, as this punishment is limited in time. CRM also accommodated minors detained on remand.
The minors’ tuition follow ordinary rules (1st to 8th grades). Moreover, they have to attend qualification courses, without which they cannot be released from CRM before coming of age (the equivalent of release on parole from penitentiary). The minors can become qualified welders, locksmiths, electricians, reelers, painters, turners, carpenters, and animal farmers. The APADOR-CH representatives consider that the range of professions should be updated and adapted to the current economic situation, so as these minors could be able to find a job after release. Besides that, the association considers that the system according to which the teacher’s commission at CRM decides what qualification course to be attended by each minor after 21 days spent in quarantine should be modified so as to take into consideration the minors’ interests and wishes. Decree no. 545/1972 that still regulated these aspects can no longer be invoked, especially as DGP has made important steps to bring the domestic legal framework in line with European standards without waiting for Law 23/1969 to be modified.
The same decree 545 forces the minors to wear uniforms rather than their own clothes. Obviously, if they are admitted to CRM and their clothes are inappropriate for the season or worn out, they should indeed be provided with the necessary equipment) at the time of this visit, the minors were still wearing winter clothes, too warm and obviously dirty after several months of use in the cold season). APADOR-CH considers that those who can afford it should be allowed to wear their own clothes, thus avoiding to standardise and even humiliate these children on the brink of adulthood, given the quality and aspect of these standard issue clothes. This change requested by APADOR-CH is even more reasonable taking into account the fact that "Prison Fellowships" has donated 6 washing machines to CRM Tichilesti for the minors. Thus, potential problems raised by the need to wash these clothes could be easily solved. Actually, the argument regarding the health risks triggered by the permission to wear their own clothes in not credible. On the one hand, the minors wear their own shirts and underwear anyway; on the other hand, the uniforms distributed by CRM were in quite a poor state.
The association also wishes to draw attention on the practice – unfortunately used in the whole penitentiary system – of having the detainees stand up in a row upon the room chief’s order whenever the door is opened. The association considers that this measure is unjustified and exaggerate, causing unnecessary discomfort to the persons in a room.
The minors wake op at5:30 a.m. every morning, clean the rooms and wash themselves from 5:0 to6:30 and have lunch at 7 a.m. From Monday to Friday they attend classes from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. (they have lunch from 1 to 1:30 p.m.). They have dinner from 7 to 7:30 p.m., followed by the roll call and the light out, at 9:30 p.m. They are allowed to take showers on Saturday and on Sundays, they go to the religious service and leisure programme.
APADOR-CH considers that the schedule is overcrowded Monday through Friday, leaving no space for leisure activities, necessary for persons of their age.
4.Punishments for violations of internal regulations
CRM enforces the provisions issued by DGP in December 1999. The procedure goes as following: incident report – report that suggests the punishment – decision of the disciplinary commission – appeal before the CRM director – appeal before the prosecutor in charge of CRM. This last decision id final. According to the director and other participants to the discussion with APADOR-CH, the person charged with violations of the internal regulations and his potential witnesses are heard by the commission.
Still, Marcel Siminoc – a minor accused of having insulted a teacher – had been in isolation since 29 March (for 8 days) without having been heard. The commission had made no decision either. APADOR-CH noted in other penitentiaries as well that the "isolation from the group" that precedes o punishment with isolation actually consists of committing the detainee to a cell especially designed for this kind of punishment. The time spend in isolation until the commission decides on the punishment is not deducted from the actual punishment. In other words, a person charged with a punishment that supposes isolation is sent to isolation right away. After several days, the commission decides a punishment with isolation of 10 or 15 days; the count begins on the day the decision is made, not with the first day spent in isolation. APADOR-CH disagrees with this interpretation of the DGP order, especially as, according to the Romanian criminal system, the period of time spent by a defendant on remand is deducted from the punishment decided by the court. The pretext that "isolation from the group" is different from isolation as a punishment is unacceptable, as the detainee spends time in an isolation cell (sometimes, a cell for restrictive regime) and the treatment he gets is identical with the one following the "official" punishment with isolation.
The minors cannot be punished with restriction of the right to receive parcels, but the youth (18 to 21 years of age) and the adults can.
As shown above, the schedule is too tight to allow for any other kind of cultural-educational activities apart from school and qualification courses. It is true that the curricula includes physical education classes, but CRM does not have a specialised teacher, nor music or drawing teachers.
In the 7 years since the Tichilesti CRM was re-established, the centre has organised 3 or 4 shows jointly with other regular schools. Unfortunately, neither the CRM management nor the 17 teachers and 19 trainers are interested in facilitating their students’ contacts with the outside world (meetings with students from regular schools, invitations, to shows, museums, concerts, etc, especially as the town of Braila is situated 14 kilometres away), or at least in encouraging guests from Braila to organise such activities on the premises. The CRM officers answered that such activities are "hard to organise"! APADOR-CH agrees that such actions would suppose more effort, but the mission of such institution is to re-educate the minors. A treatment similar to the penitentiary regime can by no means contribute to the achievement of this goal.
Besides the non-governmental institution "Europe for Europe" that was involved in the preparation of a "handbook for students" adapted to the situation at CRM and the above mentioned donation made by "prison Fellowships", there has been no consistent co-operation with representatives of the civil society.
The CRM buildings date back from 1958. The centre was closed in 1988 and reopened after about 4 years.
There is no public phone for the Tichilesti detainees, regardless of their status (minors, youth, adults who work there). An application was made to Romtelecom last year for a public pay phone, but with no result so far.
At the time of the visit there was no running water, because a system failure occurred the day before. CRM Tichilesti had some problems with water distribution during the "Danube cyanide crisis". Moreover, the local plant, that also provides drinking water, might be closed. Consequently, the centre might be closed too because of the lack of water.
CRM Tichilesti has its own vegetable garden and animal farm, as well as about 100 hectares of agricultural land. But, as in most other detention places, the output – especially meat – does not cover the demands.
According to the day’s menu, the minors were going to have bean soup and mash potatoes with meat for lunch and peas with bacon and milk for dinner, while the youth and adults were going to eat meat soup with meat by-products and pasta with meat for lunch and stew with bacon for dinner. The APADOR-CH representatives noted that the minors’ food was more or less acceptable, but the meat for youth and adults consisted of lard and bones. The detainees do not monitor the food preparation. After long talks meant to clarify the difference between the detainees who work in the kitchen – especially selected for this purpose – and the others, as well as on their right to monitor if all the foodstuffs taken each day out of the pantry are used to prepare the food, the Tichilesti staff agreed to establish such commission made of detainees. APADOR-CH noted that, in the penitentiaries where such a system is operational, the detainees have much less suspicions and dissatisfactions related to the quality and quantity of food.
Eight detainees work in the kitchen. The rooms where dishes are washed was damp, the floor wet. The stench from the food scraps deposited randomly was overwhelming.
The association believes that the minors should have their meals in spaces especially fitted out for this purpose, which is not the case.
CRM Tichilesti is one of the few detention places visited by APADOR-CH where bread is brought to the penitentiary three times a week, which means that all detainees get bread one or two days old. Most penitentiaries are supplied with bread daily.
A general practitioner, a dentist and five medical assistants provide medical assistance for all the persons at CRM Tichilesti, including the 170employees, the teachers, trainers and foremen. A psychiatrist who attends a postgraduate course is going to join the centre soon.
The infirmary consists of 4 rooms. In Room 6 there were 3 patients and 5 beds. One of the patients was an adult sentenced to 8 years in prison, who could not work and therefore could not justify his presence there. The detainees were taken out for walks for 15-20 minutes a day, with nothing to do for the rest of the time.
The medical office examines about 40-50 patients daily, but one hour up to one hour and a half every day is allotted to the staff. Still, DGP has informed APADOR-CH that, starting with 1 July 1999, the penitentiary staff is supposed to resort to the services of doctors outside the penitentiary system except for emergency cases and the compulsory periodical examinations. The association has learned that after 1 July 1999 the penitentiary staff has indeed resorted to "family doctors", but it so happened that they were exactly the doctors employed by the respective penitentiary! APADOR-CH agrees that the doctors employed by the penitentiary system can be family doctors, but of duty.
In Room 8 (minors) accommodated 29 detainees in 29 beds (tiered on 2 or 3 levels). The lavatory consisted of two toilets and a sink with 4 taps. Many mattresses were worn out and some of the bed sheets were torn. The four windows were missing. According to the guard, removing the windowpanes for the duration of the day is a normal practice "in order to air the room". Two of the windows were in the room, but the other two could not be found. "Maybe they took them to the workshop to fix them", said the guard.
A similar situation occurred in Room 19, the biggest at CRM, with40 beds and 32 minors. One of the two toilets was broken and could not be used, and only one of the taps was working. Many mattresses were old or deteriorated. Out of the three windows, one had been removed, while another was broken. The window that had been removed could not be found and the guard did not try to use the workshop excuse. On the contrary, he said that the minors had taken the window with them when they had left the room. The only possible explanation is that the window simply does not exist. The room looked gloomy (no carpets, no decoration, not even a poster, no television or radio set). APADOR-CH believes that this room was unfit to accommodate minors.
On the contrary, the two rooms accommodating youth (18 to 21 years) – Rooms 20 and 22) looked much better. Obviously, the carpets had been brought from home, and so had the decorations, the television and radio set. But the windows were intact and in place and the mattresses and bed sheets were in a good state. Only the lavatory was not up to standards, especially as the water was not running. The youth in Room 20 complained about rats.
The adults, detained under semi-open regime, are accommodated in three separate rooms and have a separate club. Actually, the semi-open system means that the detainees go to work accompanied by unarmed guards and that, when they return to CRM, they can move freely among the three rooms until 6:30 p.m., when the doors are locked. In Room 25 there were30 detainees and 46 beds. The toilets were very dirty; the water basins could not be flushed and the detainees had to use plastic bottles instead.
Friday is club day. The detainees can play chess, table tennis or watch movies.
The isolation area consists of two rooms. In Room 1 there were 7 inmates and 6 beds, only four of which had mattresses. The minors sleep in a pile because of the night’s cold and the lack of mattresses. Besides Maricel Siminoc, already mentioned above, another minor – Ovidiu Amarandei – said he had been in isolation for 6days without being heard or asked to give a statement. The only deed he admitted to was that he had slapped another minor. The room had one toilet that was flushed with water from the sink.
In Room 2 there were 3 minors and 6 beds. It is unclear why Room 1 had to be overcrowded as long as there were 3 spare beds in Room 2. Two minors – Florin Ligne and Marius Covalea – had been punished with 5 days in isolation because they and broken the fibreglass blackboard in one of the classrooms – by mistake, they said. The minors sleep in twos because of the night’s cold. Same as in Room 1, the toilet could not be flushed.
The shower room had 36 showers. APADOR-CH believes they are not enough to ensure a proper hygiene, taking into consideration also the poor state the plumbing in the rooms was in. Moreover, some windows had no glass panes and others could not be shut. The cold and the absence of wooden grates put at risk the detainees’ health.
The classrooms that hosted 1st to 4th grades were sparsely furnished. There are 5 such classrooms, including one for the 14 illiterate minors registered at the time of the APADOR-CH visit. The discussion with teachers revealed that most illiterates come from very poor families (especially Roma) who were too poor to go to school.
Besides classrooms, there are specialised rooms and workshops for the 5th to 8th grade (biology, history, carpentry, metal work, etc.). These supplementary rooms looked very well, were properly equipped with posters, models, etc, most made by the teachers and the minors.
The teacher complained that the minors had repeatedly broke the blackboards, which were very expensive. The APADOR-CH suggested that they should resume using wooden blackboards, especially as the CRM carpentry could easily make such blackboards.
A remarkable achievement was the computer lab: 8 HC 200 computers and two PCs are available to the minors. About 50 minors have learned to use the computers and even basic programming. As the 8 computers are very old and their performance poor, CRM should get at least another PC. The teacher had a software on mathematics, created by the Ministry of National Education, that he said could tremendously help students learn mathematics and use the computer at the same time.
The workshops were quite well equipped. CRM receives orders from clients outside the penitentiary system. 50% of the income is due to the minors, while the rest is kept by CRM. The association’s representatives raise two more issues: one the one hand, the minors are qualified in professions for which there is no more demand on the labour market; on the other, the procedure by which the minors are allotted to the various qualification courses is wrong. Obviously, the minors are not asked what courses they want to attend and cannot ask to be transferred from one course to another (one of the carpentry apprentices said he would have liked to become a locksmith). The association considers that a vicious circle has been created with regard to these courses: their range is limited by the equipment and the minors can attend only these courses; on the other hand, major investments would be necessary in order to extend the range of professions. Still, as all minors are detained in the two CRMs and at the Craiova juvenile penitentiary, APADOR-CH urges DGP to pay more attention to the professional training of these detainees.
The psychologist has "a kind of assistant", as he said himself. He explained that he conducts a specialised examination of each newly arrival, settles conflicts among detainees and tries to convince the minors’ parents to visit them (about 70 minors receive no visits). Group therapy is seldom employed, as the psychologist said it was hard to gather persons with the same behaviour and educational background. He did not sound enthusiastic at the idea of drama-therapy, already employed successfully in other penitentiaries (for instance, with the juveniles in Targu Jiu). In Tichilesti, drama-therapy is performed "with small groups" but only in terms of "relaxation".
The APADOR-CH representatives were left with the impression that the CRM psychologist was not very interested in his work with the minors. Although the latter see the world as divided into "us and them", as the psychologist mentioned, this is one more reason to create attractive programs, adapted to their age and concerns, in order to try to reinsert them in the society.
Conclusions:
- As CRM might genuinely be left without running water once the thermal plant is closed, APADOR-CH urges DGP to find a solution as fast as possible. The possibilities would be: a) to dig a well for CRM; b) to dissolve the centre;
- APADOR-CH asks for a review of Decree 545/1972, so as to pay special attention to the minors’ concerns and inclinations;
- The association urges DGP to review the CRM list of jobs so as to adapt it to the demands on the labour market;
- As CRM Tichilesti already has a computer lab, the association asks DGP to allot to the centre at least one or two more performant computers;
- APADOR-CH urges DGP to give up the punishment with isolation for the minors, especially for minor deeds such as breaking the blackboards;
- The association considers that the minors’ schedule is overloaded. They should have more time for leisure, which supposes an increased involvement of the teachers, the trainers and of the psychologist, who should initiate more attractive programs, suitable for the minors’ age;
- APADOR-CH considers that part of the shortcomings related to the accommodation conditions (mattresses, windows, plumbing, etc.) can be explained through the lack of concern of the logistics department of CRM.
Manuela Stefanescu
Valerian Stan