The place of the prisoners’ rights protection in the content of the punishment

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the prisoners’ rights as an element of their legal status that can influence the determination of the purpose of the punishment. Consideration has been given to the purpose of criminal punishment under Ukrainian criminal law and the real practical possibilities of achieving this aim have been analysed. The author concludes that the existing purpose of the criminal punishment is manifest in its lack of viability, which results from the impossibility of achieving it. The article states that the current state of legal relations and the development of society require changes in the purposes of punishment and the content of penal enforcement activities. Reviewing the process of transforming the perception, purpose and means of achieving punishment in penal law, the researcher argues that the principle in this sense is to ensure and respect the legal status of the prisoners, guarantees for the protection of their rights, legitimate interests and duties. The author points out that the law seeks to ensure that the rights of convicted persons are respected, but does not define it as the purpose of punishment. It is this fact that one sees inconsistency in the legal regulation and, as a consequence, the failure to meet this requirement in the enforcement of criminal sanctions. In his work, the author argues for the need to ascertain during the enforcement of sentences the needs of prisoners, to take into account their interests and, ultimately, to ensure the rights of prisoners, to create conditions for meeting their basic needs, and, above all, security requirements. In the conclusions, the author provides a doctrinal definition of the purpose of the punishment.