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KAZAKH JUSTICE MINISTER OPPOSED TO PRIVATE PRISONS

Kazakhstan: Minister opposes for-profits.
BBC Monitoring International Reports
June 7, 2004

Astana, 7 June: The government has allocated 9.8bn tenge (71m dollars) in addition to the funds allotted annually to further improve the prison conditions of convicts within the framework of the programme on the further development of the criminal justice system in 2004-06.

Justice Minister Onalsyn Zhumabekov said this today during a government hour (in parliament), a Kazakhstan Today correspondent reported from Astana.

The minister specified that the funds are allocated additionally to "further improve the imprisonment conditions of inmates and build and reconstruct correctional institutions and remand centres. "The newly-built facilities of the criminal justice system fully meet all international standards," he pointed out. Zhumabekov also said that he "categorically opposes private prisons or cells given for money".

"No-one has overcome crime yet, even in the most developed states. We have already lost the illusion that crime will be rooted out. This will not take place, and if this does take place then it is unlikely to happen in the near future," the justice minister said.

"We need to seek to curb crime and reduce it to a minimum level. All the state bodies, first of all the law-enforcement structures, must tackle it," Zhumabekov believes.

As for keeping inmates in prisons, "this is a burden of every state, which it must bear". "It is the state which should keep prisons. If they become private they will have no order," he believes.

Source: Kazakhstan Today news agency web site, Almaty, in Russian 0655 gmt 7 Jun 04