The article draws attention to the fact that in accordance with international documents in the detention of prisoners and the provision of places for sleep it is necessary to treat them with respect for human dignity, with the possibility of seclusion in a separate room. Meanwhile, the criminal-executive legislation of Ukraine, the practice of punishment in the form of imprisonment, the spatial structure of correctional colonies do not provide such an opportunity. Since its introduction in 1920, imprisonment only involves collective retention of the convicts first in the barracks, now in the dormitories, that is the material embodiment of the idea of correction of the convicts «in the collective and through the collective.» It is not about any personal space of the convicted person, since placement in dormitories, where the living space is provided in 4 m2, excludes the possibility of solitude neither in the daytime nor at night. Under such conditions, the result of living of prisoners in dormitories due to the large crowding of people in a confined space is a manifestation of anxious-depressive, negative-depressive and negative-hysterical reactions among them. Accommodation in such dormitories causes irreparable harm to the individual, contributing to the development of psychological fatigue, alienation, tension, irritation, anxiety and depression, that leads to neuro-psychological overload, conflicts and breakdowns. Prolonged being of convicts in an aggressive environment of their own without any possibility of seclusion with inevitability leads to psychosomatic changes, that become irreversible after 5–6 years of imprisonment. Thus, the placement of convicts in dormitories acquires signs of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The purpose of the article is to develop proposals aimed at eliminating the shortcomings of imprisonment with serving it in correctional colonies, in order to replace the deprivation of liberty, that involves the residence of prisoners in dormitories, with imprisonment. that provides private space in a separate room for each prisoner. This material allows to submit the following proposals: it is necessary to abandon such a type of punishment as imprisonment introduced in 1920 by the Provisional Instruction of the People’s Commissariat of Justice; instead of imprisonment, there should be punishment in the form of imprisonment only for violent crimes against a person; taking into account the negative impact on the health of a person of a prolonged isolation, the maximum term of imprisonment may not be more than five years; the possibility of imprisonment for minors should be ruled out; there is a need to abandon the «ideal zone» and introduce a new for Ukraine architectural model of a prison where there would be no placement of convicts in dormitories, and each prisoner would be provided with a living room of a hotel type that complies with the European prison rules, with sanitary compliance of the hygienic requirements to the living space and the cubic area at least at the level of the nineteenth century, which was in solitary cells of the royal prisons, that is, an area of at least 10 m2 and, accordingly, a cubature not less than 28 м3.