Kuat Rakhimberdin, a well-known Kazakh legal scholar, Professor of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the S. Amanzholov East Kazakhstan University, and Honorary Professor of the Kostanay Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, has answered pressing questions concerning criminal-executive law in Kazakhstan.

– Kuat Khazhumukhanovich, which problems in Kazakhstan's criminal-executive system are the most pressing today?

– At one time, we began painstaking work to reduce the "prison population" and develop a system of alternatives to imprisonment, and this yielded results. Kazakhstan has, I hope, irrevocably lost its "honorable" leadership in terms of the proportion of prisoners and today ranks somewhere around 100th in the world by this indicator. Undoubtedly, this is a positive factor.

However, in many respects our criminal-executive system retains the traditions of militarization and a paramilitary way of organizing the daily life of convicts. In effect, this is yesterday's chapter of its history. It seems absurd and senseless to preserve such vestiges in the present and future. It appears that for many decades the criminal-executive system has lacked consideration of the humanitarian, human factor. Hence the peculiar "thrashing" from one extreme to another: either convicts' drill marches and their barracks-style existence are preserved, or video surveillance cameras are installed and technological innovations are introduced in penitentiary institutions, which, alas, are often disabled by the convicts themselves and thus far have an ineffective impact on their conditions of detention.

One of the key problems of criminal-executive activity is the formation of a new value paradigm for the administration and staff of bodies and institutions that execute punishments. The essence of this paradigm lies in the conviction that this activity is aimed at creating conditions for the social reintegration of convicts in the interests of ensuring the security of society and the state, as well as protecting human rights and freedoms. Such a value shift requires priority consideration of the human factor, whereas various technologies should play a subsidiary, subordinate role.

Naturally, one of the most pressing problems of criminal-executive law remains the problem of minimizing recidivism. Unfortunately, it has not yet been resolved either in Kazakhstan or in Russia. Moreover, it remains unresolved in many other states, including the United States. A careful accounting of repeat offense rates is necessary, including data on penitentiary recidivism, as well as research that makes it possible to identify the most optimal methods of influencing the determinants of recidivism.

This problem, in turn, is closely linked to the effectiveness of the execution of punishments and other measures of criminal-law impact and touches upon various aspects of studying the personality of convicts.

To ensure effective criminal-executive regulation, it is necessary to understand the inner world and the socio-psychological characteristics of contemporary convicts, especially those held in places of deprivation of liberty.

A special role in such understanding is played by the tools of convict censuses. In this connection, the experience accumulated in the Russian Federation in organizing and conducting such censuses should be welcomed and supported in every possible way. A significant contribution to the formation of this experience was made by my Russian colleagues under the academic supervision of Professor V. Seliverstov. It seems advisable to use these tools in Kazakhstan's criminal-executive system as well.

I cannot fail to mention the global problem of the effectiveness of the resocialization of convicts. Unfortunately, today resocialization often looks like an ancient frigate without sails, that is, like a process not provided with a clear and workable mechanism. As a result, it often stalls in practice, and this stalling, in turn, contributes to the growth of repeat crime.

Among the significant problems of criminal-executive activity, one should also name the issue of the optimal involvement of convicts in paid labor. At the same time, I do not mean established bureaucratic jargon such as "labor utilization" or "labor employment," which reflects a purely functional-instrumental, depersonalized approach to the human being. What is meant is the creation of real opportunities to involve convicts in such labor as would ensure a decent standard of living and form a stable work motivation in their future lives beyond the walls of penitentiary institutions.

My Russian colleagues, including Professor V. Utkin, also write about the importance of organizing convict labor. However, it must be clearly understood that involving convicts exclusively in primitive types of labor is hardly capable of ensuring their full-fledged resocialization. It is necessary to create conditions for them to demonstrate their professional qualities, abilities, and creative potential in diverse types of labor activity. World experience convincingly shows that the opportunity to work in accordance with one's interests and abilities while receiving decent remuneration is one of the key conditions for the successful social reintegration of persons released from places of deprivation of liberty.

Particular attention should also be given to improving the mechanisms for the participation of civil society institutions in assisting convicts during their resocialization, to the issues of ensuring the rights and legitimate interests of vulnerable categories of convicts, and to countering the risks of radicalization in penitentiary institutions.

I have been working on this topic for many years and have repeatedly raised the question of the need to amend Kazakhstan's criminal-executive legislation with regard to the prohibition on opening and operating premises for religious rites and sacraments in penitentiary institutions. The fears that removing this prohibition would lead to increased radicalization among convicts seem naive. On the contrary, preserving it often provokes conflicts between convicts of different religious views and institution staff, which is exploited by leaders of radical groups who turn convicts against the activities of the bodies and institutions of the criminal-executive system.

It also seems advisable to create a service of penitentiary chaplains following the example of Belarus and a number of other states, which would make it possible to implement the recommendations of the Nelson Mandela Rules. In other words, there is a significant number of aspects and problematic situations related to criminal-executive activity and criminal policy that require close attention from legal scholarship and practice.

Most of my colleagues, I believe, would agree with the thesis that a reverse growth of the "prison population" is inadmissible. As Nils Christie convincingly demonstrated in his time, such growth has no socio-criminological or penological grounds. One need only look, for example, at Turkey: just 20 years ago the number of prisoners there was about 50,000, whereas today it has reached approximately 420,000, that is, it has increased more than eightfold. It is obvious that this is not connected with an eightfold increase in crime; such toughening of criminal policy serves other internal objectives of the state and its political regime.

Given contemporary trends in the development of digital technologies, a deep and comprehensive study of ways to introduce artificial intelligence tools into criminal-executive activity is required. Such introduction must be accompanied by thorough scholarly elaboration, since the adoption of key decisions in the sphere of the execution of punishments must remain the prerogative of humans, not machines.

Thus, contemporary criminal policy, criminal-executive law, and the practice of executing punishments face a whole complex of challenges to which legal scholarship and practice are capable of and obliged to give a balanced and humanistically oriented response.

– What can you say about the state of criminal-executive scholarship?

– Contemporary scholarship in criminal-executive law in Kazakhstan has a solid doctrinal foundation that took shape back in the Soviet era. It was then that academic schools were formed that dealt with issues that remain relevant today. It is quite natural that there is continuity of academic schools and ideas that continue to develop at present. A clear example of this is the Tomsk school of A. Remenson.

At the same time, one cannot fail to note a feature that affects the state of criminal-executive legal scholarship. In the Russian Federation, for example, in addition to civilian universities, it is successfully developed in the sphere of departmental research activity. In other words, under the auspices of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, on the basis of numerous departmental universities – in Ryazan, Samara, Novokuznetsk, and other cities – applied research in the field of criminal-executive activity is carried out.

In Kazakhstan, at present there is only one departmental educational institution – the Kostanay Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which carries out targeted training and retraining of personnel for the country's criminal-executive system. Naturally, this is not enough. Although the leadership of the Criminal-Executive System Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan pays serious attention to the partnership between scholarship and law enforcement practice, well understanding the need for scholarly and conceptual support for the strategic directions of development of Kazakhstan's criminal-executive system.

It seems that further improvement of the potential of criminal-executive legal scholarship in the Republic of Kazakhstan is inseparable from preserving and maintaining strong creative and professional ties with academic schools existing in the Russian Federation, as well as with centers of departmental scholarship actively engaged in understanding socio-legal reality within the framework of the functioning of educational institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.

– And do you think there is a need to adopt a new Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan?

– The current Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan entered into force in January 2015. I must note that I criticized its provisions even at the draft stage, and, unfortunately, a certain inconsistency between the Criminal Code and the Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan persists to this day.

Since the entry into force of the Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 53 laws introducing amendments and additions to it have been adopted – and this in just over ten years. The exact number of changes to criminal-executive legislation is difficult to account for, since different laws introduced different numbers of amendments. On the whole, however, this clearly indicates the instability and volatility of criminal-executive legislation, the consequences of which are felt by the criminal-executive system.

Moreover, such a significant number of changes testifies to their palliative rather than conceptual character, which hardly contributes to the effective fulfillment of the tasks of criminal-executive activity.

Does this mean that Kazakhstan needs a new Criminal-Executive Code? Frankly speaking, I am not sure that its adoption would become a panacea for all existing problems. Apart from that, adopting a new codified law is a costly and resource-intensive undertaking, and besides a normative act there also exists real law enforcement practice, criminal-executive social relations, and the legal consciousness and value orientations of criminal-executive system employees.

In other words, a systemic and scientifically grounded approach is indispensable here. I do not believe that the adoption of a new Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan is the primary task of today. At the same time, I am convinced that substantial and specifically conceptual changes are overdue, concerning both the substantive part of the Criminal-Executive Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan and a number of aspects of legal technique. It is necessary to ensure the consistent implementation of UN international legal instruments into Kazakhstan's criminal-executive legislation, to create a conceptual and organizational-legal mechanism for the resocialization of convicts, and to develop tools for assessing the effectiveness of probation supervision and the execution of punishments not involving isolation from society.

It should be noted that at present the leadership of the Criminal-Executive System Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan is working on preparing a new Concept for the Development of the Criminal-Executive System of the Republic of Kazakhstan through 2030, which will undoubtedly influence not only penitentiary practice but also the state of a whole range of norms and institutions of the criminal-executive legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

– What can we take from the experience of other countries?

– As a scholar and as a representative of civil society institutions in Kazakhstan, I believe that foreign experience in ensuring the resocialization of convicts and involving them in paid labor is of particular interest. For example, in Italy, France, and some other states, convicts work even in high-tech production facilities, manufacturing products for world-famous clothing, footwear, and other brands. It is noteworthy that after release they continue their labor activity at these enterprises, successfully reintegrating into society.

Abroad, various programs for the resocialization of convicts are widely used, including programs teaching skills for managing free time. These programs are oriented toward taking into account the needs of convicts and the interests of society and the state. Unfortunately, they are virtually unknown in Kazakhstan. Undoubtedly, the experience of participation by civil society institutions in providing social, legal, and other assistance to convicts also deserves attention. For example, in Japan the number of public assistants to the protective supervision (probation) service many times exceeds the number of civil servants employed in this system. At the same time, various ways of motivating civil society participation in the resocialization of convicts are successfully implemented.

As for the question of whether our experience may be of interest to foreign states, I will answer it as follows: every country, including Kazakhstan, has certain achievements in the criminal-executive sphere, and in some matters we even surpass certain countries that are often cited as examples. For instance, in Kazakhstan the punishment of life imprisonment is not applicable to women and minors, or to persons over 63 years of age.

In the United States and Great Britain, by contrast, women and minors serve life imprisonment, and the number of these categories of convicts in penitentiary institutions has been continuously growing over recent decades.

I believe that Kazakhstan has chosen a more humane approach compared to the aforementioned states, excluding the application and execution of life imprisonment in respect of certain categories of convicts.

Along with this, Kazakhstan's more than 10-year experience in the sphere of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) is interesting. It provides for regular independent visits to penitentiary institutions by NPM participants, and the practice of such visits has already taken shape. Moreover, their results are included in the annual Consolidated Report and in one way or another influence changes in the legal status of convicts. As a long-standing NPM participant, I can assure you that the aforementioned visits are not conducted "for the sake of a checkmark": they make it possible to identify serious shortcomings and problems, which are honestly pointed out in the reports on the results of the visits. I think that this experience may be useful to other states, especially those that are only forming the tools of public oversight in their legislation.

I cannot fail to note that in 2025 Kazakhstan opened an educational institution for juvenile offenders, in which maximum compliance with the recommendations of UN international standards on the treatment of juvenile offenders has been ensured, and modern technologies have been employed. This became possible within the framework of implementing public-private partnership, since funds from the business community were attracted for the construction of this institution and not a single tenge of budget resources was spent. I believe that this experience may also be of interest to various foreign states.

– How do you assess the implementation of the probation system in Kazakhstan?

– Kazakhstan became the first country in the Central Asian region where a probation system was created. However, in fact, of the four models of probation provided for by the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, only one works – the model of sentencing probation, covering the execution of punishments without isolation from society. According to official data from the Criminal-Executive System Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, among persons under probation supervision, 70.6 percent are convicts sentenced to restriction of liberty; 13.8 percent are convicts deprived of the right to hold a certain position or engage in a certain activity. At the same time, the share of conditionally sentenced persons was 11.8 percent. The share of persons serving a sentence in the form of involvement in community service was 1.7 percent. Convicts with deferral of serving a sentence accounted for 2.1 percent, while the number of convicts sentenced to corrective labor was 0.03 percent.

These data testify to an unjustified distortion of punitive practice, in which probation is essentially concentrated around only one punishment – restriction of liberty. Pre-trial probation effectively does not work, since there is no criminal-procedural algorithm for it. Penitentiary probation is not implemented in full, since, in accordance with the recommendations of the UN Minimum Standard Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules), programs for the social reintegration of convicts in places of deprivation of liberty must be carried out jointly by probation officers and the administration of penitentiary institutions.

Such activity is not currently carried out, and the administration of institutions often presents as probation measures an ordinary set of traditional measures of educational and preventive influence that were regularly carried out in places of deprivation of liberty before as well.

Unfortunately, post-penitentiary probation also does not function properly, since, due to erroneous managerial decisions of the former leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, persons under administrative supervision after serving a sentence of deprivation of liberty were completely unjustifiably excluded from the recipients of probation influence.

Miscalculations and errors, as well as methodological and organizational omissions, immediately affected the general state of probation practice in our country. In particular, the share of persons who committed grave crimes and are under probation supervision was 65.5 percent. At the same time, the share of those convicted of crimes of medium gravity was 22.1 percent. Such practice contradicts the recommendations of UN international standards, according to which probation supervision is intended primarily for persons who have committed relatively non-dangerous crimes.

These problems are covered in detail in my monograph "Legal Regulation of Probation in the Legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan: Current State, Problems and Prospects." Professor V. Utkin, in his speech at the IV St. Petersburg Penitentiary Conference on May 17, 2024, noted that "K. Rakhimberdin's study I would call a requiem for Kazakhstani probation."

Moreover, for some time the probation system in Kazakhstan was under threat of being transferred to the Administrative Police Committee, which, in my view, could have led to the actual destruction of probation. On the instructions of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, E. Sadenov, I prepared an expert opinion in which I analyzed the negative consequences of such a step, as well as the causes and manifestations of the crisis state of Kazakhstani probation. The opinion bore fruit: the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan drew the appropriate conclusions, and the issue of transferring the probation bodies to the Administrative Police Committee was withdrawn. I think readers will agree that in this case the dialogue between academic scholarship and the leadership of state authorities not only took place but also proved effective.

Unfortunately, the systemic problems of probation in our country have not yet been resolved. It should be noted that in Kazakhstan, just as in Russia, a Law "On Probation" is in force, however, the paths of probation development in our countries have significant differences. Kazakhstani probation initially took shape as a form of post-criminal supervision over convicts; in criminal legislation it is enshrined as a substantive element of the punishment of restriction of liberty (Article 44 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan). This decision by the Kazakh legislator was erroneous, since it is illogical to mix the punitive institution of punishment and the institution of post-criminal supervision, whose measures have no punitive content. Subsequently, an attempt was made to combine this supervision with measures for the resocialization of convicts. Therefore, not only a separate law but also the relevant norms of criminal and criminal-executive legislation are devoted to probation.

Interviewed by Olga SIZOVA,
Staff Correspondent of "YUG"
for the East Kazakhstan Region