Organizational and Legal Aspects of the Execution of Life and Long-Term Imprisonment
Zubkova V.I., Nagornykh R.V. Organizational and legal aspects of the execution of life and long-term imprisonment. Penitentiary Science, 2025, vol. 19, no. 1 (69), pp. 74–81. doi 10.46741/2686-9764.2025.69.1.009
The article is devoted to current problems of legal regulation and organization of the execution of life and long-term imprisonment in modern conditions. The purpose of the article is to highlight organizational and legal aspects of the execution of life and long-term imprisonment in the context of tightening the state’s punitive policy against persons who have committed qualified crimes of a terrorist nature or organized or participated in armed rebellion. The methodological basis of the work is formed by general and private scientific (historical-legal, comparative-legal, descriptive, content analysis) methods of legal reality cognition. In this regard, the article substantiates the position that legal regulation in the considered segment of the state’s punitive policy should provide for an appropriate organizational and legal mechanism for the initial review of sentences no later than twenty-five years after their imposition and regular reviews thereafter. At the same time, legislative criteria and conditions related to the review of sentences should be sufficiently clear and definite, and those sentenced to life imprisonment themselves should have the right to know from the very beginning of serving their sentence what they need to do for a possible decision on their release and under what conditions such release is possible. Scientific and practical significance of the work consists in substantiating the provisions that improving legal regulation of the organization of the execution of life and long-term imprisonment is possible by applying the following approach: convicts serve their sentences in strict conditions for the first ten years of imprisonment and perhaps in single special institutions, and then, depending on their behavior, they can be transferred to less restrictive conditions and to other institutions, or are left in special institutions in case of malicious violations of the established procedure for serving a sentence. Such an approach will require solving related organizational and legal tasks in the field of developing a network of special institutions, personnel training and providing other resource support for their functioning.
Keywords: Legal regulation; organization; life imprisonment; long-term imprisonment; penal system
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