Legal Shortcomings of Preventing Infectious Diseases in Russian Convicted Persons

The paper focuses on the shortcomings of the legal regulation of preventing infectious diseases among the convicted people in Russia. The authors consider numerous legal documents. Using theoretical methods of cognition, the authors confirmed the need to improve existing legislation on preventing infectious diseases in convicts by making appropriate amendments to Article 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. It is also necessary to amend Articles 18, 25, 39, 47.1, and 85 of the Penal Enforcement Code of the Russian Federation. We proposed consolidating preventive measures at the legislative level when a convict with a severe infectious disease is admitted to a correctional institution. It is also necessary to determine the body executing criminal punishment and establish various measures when such a disease is detected in a convicted person already in a correctional institution. The latter includes, among other things, broadening the grounds for introducing special conditions in the jail by identifying the epidemic among convicts sentenced to imprisonment. We suggested enshrining the possibility of suspending punishments not related to the isolation of convicted persons from society in emergency cases and the actual impossibility of executing sentence in the relevant Articles of the Penal Enforcement Code.