theme №271 18.03.1997 (1997)

Theme issue - area.

In Russia there are 750 colonies and more than 180 prisons.

The number of prisoners is 1 million 200 thousand people, 70 thousand women, 40 Grand - children.

Annually for the maintenance of one prisoner the government is spending 8 million rubles, but despite this, the prison still reigns hunger and disease thrive.

They say that from Sumy and from prison do not promise, especially in our country where disaster no one is immune.

No one can say for sure that never crosses the boundaries of a particular state called "the zone".

What is the state and what laws it lives?

Experiences of people who were caught behind bars?

Could inmates to protect their rights?

In the famous former prisoners Anatoly Garshin and Sergey Korotkov, human rights activists Gennady Molchanov (also a former inmate) and Andrei Babushkin, Colonel of internal service Oleg N. Evtikhiev, the representative of the Serpukhov society of Trustees of penitentiary institutions Irina Kotova, the correspondent "the General newspaper" Gennady Zhavoronkov, major of internal service Alexander Sidorov, the poet-pesennik Michael Tanic and group "the tree felling".