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January 17, 2011
Can you believe prisons now have tanning beds ... in Russia?!?!?!
There is this amusing new prison story, headlined "Notorious Russian prison to get tanning beds," coming from the AP out of Moscow. Here are the details:
A centuries-old Russian prison notorious for its primitive conditions will soon offer inmates a new perk — tanning beds....
[Viktor] was quoted as saying the tanning beds are meant to compensate for inadequate sunlight in the cells. But inmates will have to pay and at 10 rubles (33 cents) a minute, that's a sizable fee in a country where the average monthly salary is well under $1,000.
The prison's dismal conditions attracted wide attention in 2009 after the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a young lawyer who died of pancreas disease there after inadequate medical care.
January 17, 2011 at 03:50 PM | Permalink
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Comments
sounds like I'm on the next plane to Russia.
Posted by: kenneth sims | Jan 17, 2011 4:30:02 PM
"But inmates will have to pay and at 10 rubles (33 cents) a minute, that's a sizable fee in a country where the average monthly salary is well under $1,000."
Surely they mean yearly? $12k a year is US poverty but nothing to sneeze at elsewhere.
Posted by: . | Jan 17, 2011 4:56:36 PM
further, a 30 min session is $10. 4 times a month is $40, a fraction of what AP says is monthly salary.
wouldn't it be easie
Posted by: . | Jan 17, 2011 4:58:53 PM
The more complete story about the new online facility whereby relatives etc can order food/goods for inmates, is also a sign of some measure of acceptance that technology can usefully be harnessed to improve conditions to more acceptable levels of humanity. US authorities could and should do very much more in this direction. As I have argued before, a sentence of imprisonment should not be interpreted by authorities as a sentence to deprivation of anything other than liberty. Too often, prison stores offer unnecessarily limited, very expensive, and sometimes very poor quality goods.
Posted by: peter | Jan 18, 2011 3:50:50 AM
complaints against poor conditions in Russian prisons are quite often filed with ECHR. The last one is Petrenko v. Russia.
Posted by: Vladimir | Jan 21, 2011 8:13:10 AM
Thank you very much for keeping me up to date.
Posted by: Health Blog | Jan 26, 2011 8:12:51 AM
