Prisoner

prisoner

a person deprived of liberty and kept in prison or some other form of custody as a punishment for a crime, while awaiting trial, or for some other reason

---

Prisoner 

(Russian, zakliuchennyi), a person arrested by way of a measure of restraint. In the USSR the legal status of the prisoner is defined by the Statute on Preliminary Confinement Under Guard (July 11, 1969), according to which persons in custody in places of preliminary confinement have obligations and rights established by the legislation enacted for citizens of the USSR, with restrictions arising from the regimen of custody.

Prisoners have the right to receive, in accordance with established procedure, packages, parcels, and money orders; they may also purchase food and other necessities by means of cashless transactions, have in their possession documents and notes pertinent to their case, and use books from the prison library. Female prisoners have the right to have with them children up to two years of age. Visits of relatives and other persons are granted, as a rule, once a month with the permission of the official or agency in charge of the proceedings of the given case. The same procedure governs correspondence with relatives and other citizens. Meetings with lawyers are granted without restrictions and for any length of time. Prisoners may be recruited for work only with their consent and with the permission of agencies of inquiry, the procurator, or the court, and they may work only at the place of preliminary confinement. The conditions of prisoners’ work and the payment for their work are determined by the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Sometimes the term “prisoner” applies to all persons in confinement, including those serving sentences upon conviction by a court; from the legal point of view, these persons are called convicts.

I. V. SHMAROV [9–90CM]