Investigation is usually emrusted to the prison warden's assistam or to the secretary of the police depanmem. Ac- cording to the island commandam, "investigations are begun on insufficient information, they are conducted slug- gishly and clumsily, and the prisoners are detained without any reason." A suspect or an accused person is arrested and put in a cell. \'\!hen a settler was killed at Goly Mys, four men werc suspened and arrested.0 They were placed in dark cold cells. In a few days three were released, and only one was detained. He was put in chains and orders were issued to give him hot food only every third day. Then, by order of thc warden, he was given 100 lashes. A hungry, frightened man, he was kept in a dark cell until he con- fessed. The free woman Garanina was detained in the prison at the same time on suspicion of having murdered her husband. She was also placed in a dark cell and received hot food every third day. When one official questioned her in my presence, she said that she had been ill for a long time and that for some rcason they would not permit a dotor to see her. When the official asked the guard in charge of the cells why they had not troubled to get a donor for her, he answered, "I wem to the honorable warden, but he only said, 'Let her croak.' "
This incapacity to differemiate imprisonmem before trial from puniti%'e imprisonmem (and this in a dark cell of a convict prison), the incapacity to differentiate between frce people and convicts amazed me especially because the local district commander is a law-school graduate and the prison warden was at one time a member of the Petersburg Police Department.
I visited the cells a second time early in the morning in the company of the island commandant. Four convicts sus- pected of murder were released from their cells; they were shivering with cold. Garanina, in stockings and without shoes, was shivering and blinking in the light. The com- mandant ordered her transferred to a room with good light. I saw a Georgian flitting like a shadow around the entrance to the cells. He has been held for five months in the dark hallway on suspicion of poisoning and is awaiting investi- gation. The assistant prosecutor does not live on Sakhalin and there is nobody to supervise an investigation. The direction and speed of an investigation are totally depend- ent on various circumstances which had no reference to the case itself. I read in one report that the murder of a certain Yakovleva was committed "'with the intent of rob- bery with a preliminary attempt at rape, which is evidenced by the rumpled bedding and fresh scratches and impres- sions of heel spikes on the backboard of the bed." Such a consideration predetermines the outcome of the trial; an autopsy is not considered necessary in such cases. In 1888 an escaped convict murdered Private Khromarykh and the autopsy was only conducted in 1889 on the demand of the prosecutor when the investigation had been completed and the case brought to trial.7
Article 469 of the Code permits the local administration to specify and carry out punishment without any formal police investigation for such crimes and offenses by crimi- nals for which punishment is due according to the general criminal laws, not excluding the loss of all personal rights and privileges in imprisonment. Generally the petry cases on Sakhalin are judged by a formal police court which is under the authoriry of the police department. Notwith- standing the broad scope of this local court, which has jurisdiction over all petry crimes as well as over a multi- tude of cases which are only nominally regarded as petry, the local communiry does not enjoy justice and Jacks a court of law. Where an official has the right, according to law, to flog and incarcerate people without trial and with- out investigation and even to send them to hard labor in the mines, the existence of a court of law has merely formal significance.8
Punishment for serious crimes is decided by the Primorskaya district court, which settles cases only on documentary evidence without questioning the defendants or witnesses. The decision of a district court is always pre- sented for approval to the island commandant, who, if he disagrees with the verdict, settles the case on his own authority. If the sentence is changed, the fact is reported to the ruling senate. If the administration considers a crime as being more serious than it appears to be on the official record, and if it regards the punishment as insuffi- cient according to the Code on Convicti, then it petitions for arraignment of the defendant before a court-martial.
The punishment usually inflicted upon convicts and set- tlers is distinguished by extraordinary severity. Our Code 011 Convicti is at odds with the spirit of the times and of the laws, and this is especially evident in the sections con- cerning punishment. Punishments which humiliate the of- fender, embitter him and contribute to his moral degrada- tion, those punishments which have long since been regarded as intolerable among free men, are still being used here against settlers and convicts. It is as though exiles were less subject to the dangers of becoming bitter and callous, and losing their human dignity. Birch rods, whips, chains, iron balls, punishments which shame the victim and cause pain and torment to his body, are used extensively. Floggings with birch rods and whips are habit- ual for all kinds of transgressions, whether small or large. It is the indispensable mainstay of all punishment, some- times supplementing other forms of chastisement, or used alone.
The most frequently used punishment is flogging with birch rods.9 As shown in the official report, this punishment was imposed on 282 convicts and settlers in Alexandrovsk in 1889 by orders of the administration: corporal punish- ment, i.e., with birch rods, was inflicted on 265, while 17 were punished in other ways. The administration used birch rods in 94 out of 100 cases. In fact, the number of criminals suffering corporal punishment is far from being accurately recorded in the reports. The reports of the Tymovsky district for i 889 show that only 57 convicts were beaten with birch rods and only 3 are recorded in Korsakov; although the truth is that they flog several peo- ple every day in both districts, and sometimes there are 10 a day in Korsakov.
All sort of transgressions my result in a man's getting thirty to a hundred strokes with birch rods: nonperform- ance of the daily work quota (for example, if the shoe- maker did not sew his required three pairs of shoes), drunkenness, vulgarity, insubordination. . . . If 20 to 30 men fail to complete their work quota, all 20 to 30 are beaten. One official told me:
The prisoners, especially those in irons, like to present absurd petitions. When I was appointed here, I toured the prison and received 50 petitions. I accepted them, and then announced that those whose petitions do not deserve atten- tion would be punished. Only 2 of the petitions proved to be worthwhile, the remainder were nonsense. I ordered 48 men to be flogged. The next time 2 5 were flogged, and later fewer and fewer, and now they no longer send me petitions. I cured them of the habit.
In the South, as a result of a convict's denunciation, a search was made of another convict's possessions and a diary was found which was presumed to contain drafts of correspondence carried on with friends at home. They gave him fifty strokes with birch rods and kept him i 5 days in a dark cell on bread and water. With the knowledge of the district commander, the inspector in Lyutoga gave cor- poral punishment to nearly everyone. Here is how the island commandant describes it:
The commander of the Korsakov district informed me about the extremely serious instances of excessive authority used by X., who ordered some settlers to receive corporal punishment far beyond the limits set by the law. This in- stance, shocking in itself, is even more shocking when the circumstances which provoked the punishment are analyzed. There had been a quite commonplace and futile brawl be- tween exiled setders; and it made no difference to him whether he punished the innocent or the guilty, or pregnant women. [Order No. 258, 1888.}