Most research into prison systems begins by examining the origins of the system under study. This can be a difficult task because it requires the researcher to contextualize the present day system in its' historical roots. Yet those seeking to understand their own prison system are presented with very few problems in taking into account the history of that system. Indeed, there is an element of 'taken for grantedness' when conducting historical research into one's own prison system based on cultural, historical, and political familiarity. However, taking the 'native' out of their own culture and placing them into a setting completely different from their own is quite another subject. The main problem facing an outsider who is conducting prison research in Russia is to do with the fact that the prison system is deeply embedded in a society that has undergone revolutionary change. The radical upheavals that have taken place in Russia have been such, that as a subject of research, the Russian prison system must rate as one of the most difficult areas on which to collate material. Many of us are familiar with the Russian prison system from the well-known standpoint of the political dissident. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is the greatest living political prisoner of the former Soviet Union. His writings have catalogued the atrocities of forced labour concentration camps in minute and succinct detail. Solzhenitsyn's testimony exposes prison labour as an ideological and economic mechanism that serves to perpetuate political struggle of Marxism/Leninism. His work is revealing of how prisons in Russia operated as 'mini-societies or States within States' (Solzenitsyn, 1974). More recent attempts to explain the Russian prison labour phenomenon have come from So-vietologists and historians such as Robert Conquest and Edwin Bacon. The research they have carried out seeks to address the controversial issue of the size of the prison population during the Soviet era. The 'truth component' of prisoner memoirs has also been questioned by scholars who seek to form a broader, more academic picture of the prison labour phenomenon based on censored data collected from economic outputs, geographical location of camps and administrative penal departments (Times Literary Supplement, March-June 1994). Scholarly distinctions can be made between those who start from official Soviet demographic data and those who give more credence to the estimates of émigrés and former prisoners. The debates remain vigorous between those who argue that camp figures are lower in the former and higher in the latter (Bacon, 1994). I have set about assessing some of these issues in archives at the Central Lenin Library for myself as well as talking with prison camp survivors. But because of difficulties regarding access and managing the massive amount of material effectively, I have found myself having to discard most of the material as only a select few documents were relevant to my research. In the literal definition of the word, a system is a number of related parts making up a whole. The criminal justice system, however, is far from these terms. How then is it possible for a system to be a nonsystem? Police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections make up this system, each having their own distinct functions, concerns, goals, and routines. Working independently, they foster functional fragmentation, lacking cooperation and coordination (Stinchcomb & Fox, 1994). In fact, their separate and defined missions are often contradictory. Corrections are at the downstream of the system existing as a response to the other entities. They also contain no autonomy and have the least control over their domain. Additionally, they inherit the discrimination and inequalities passed through the system while being the prey of politicians, who ultimately shape every aspect of corrections. Still, they have the awesome responsibilities of providing care, custody, and control over those accused or convicted of a criminal offense. The paradigm of corrections can be defined in terms of the ph

Despite the availability of witness testimonies in English, and the broad-brush analyses of archival material currently being undertaken, surprisingly little is known about the contemporary system. Towards the end of the pre-Soviet period, a tradition of penological research was established. This research was not wholly 'independent' academic research and took the form of 'government commissions.' Yet a culture of research was established that involved visiting prisons to assess conditions and assessing methods of punishment. During the Soviet era, prison research focused on policy issues. These issues were based around establishing coherent strategies for establishing and maintaining a Marxist society. Researchers (otherwise known as scientists) who undertook prison research did so on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior. Scientists sought to establish the ways in which the prison population contributed to the ideology of the Soviet Union. There is little evidence that this 'contribution' was ever critically debated in the context of a broader picture of imprisonment. Whilst the work of scientists such as Aleksander Mikhlin and Aleksander Detkov is important, there are very few accounts of the Russian system of corrective labour by persons outside the system. In the literal definition of the word, a system is a number of related parts making up a whole. The criminal justice system, however, is far from these terms. How then is it possible for a system to be a nonsystem? Police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections make up this system, each having their own distinct functions, concerns, goals, and routines. Working independently, they foster functional fragmentation, lacking cooperation and coordination (Stinchcomb & Fox, 1994). In fact, their separate and defined missions are often contradictory. Corrections are at the downstream of the system existing as a response to the other entities. They also contain no autonomy and have the least control over their domain. Additionally, they inherit the discrimination and inequalities passed through the system while being the prey of politicians, who ultimately shape every aspect of corrections. Still, they have the awesome responsibilities of providing care, custody, and control over those accused or convicted of a criminal offense. The paradigm of corrections can be defined in terms of the physical plant, program, and people. These institutions create an artificial environment; a "barbed wire bureaucracy" of hierarchical structure, closed system operations, and classifications of control (Stinchcomb & Fox, 1994).

The acute overcrowding and dilapidation of the buildings will strike those who have seen Russian prisons. Because of this, prison research in Russia tends to give attention to the appalling conditions inside the prison colonies. Prisons, by their very nature throw up questions about human rights, and Russia is no exception. Whilst the problems of the health of prisoners, prison conditions, and human rights is fundamental to all prison research, such is the severity of these matters of concern, that such broader criminological questions as: 'what does this method of punishment mean?' often, fall out of the picture. The Moscow Centre for Prison Reform (MCPR) engages in raising awareness about human rights in prisons. Recent achievements include television discussions between MCPR and government ministers and an installation of pictures and images inside TB prison colonies in the Duma (Russian equivalent to Westminster). The centre also benefits from support from Prison Reform International, thus the human rights 'complexion' to the study of imprisonment in Russia is reinforced. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN Rapporteur on Torture have also published reports on prison conditions. The most recent publication was in 1999 by Prison Reform International (PRI). This publication deals with the TB epidemic in the prisons that made up the former Soviet Union. Other than these important publications, King's 1992 and 1994 studies remain the only published empirical account of the contemporary system. My own attempt to develop a thesis based on qualitative and quantitative research began by learning Russian. Much of this period was spent attempting (albeit naively) to get into the Russian mind-set. I found it enormously beneficial that I was able to engage in conversations on topics as diverse as poetry to tolerance of vodka. This enabled me to 'win people' over to my side, establishing a starting point for honest, sympathetic and professional rapport. Initially it was planned that I would limit the fieldwork to one of the 69 prison regions (oblast) and assess one example of each of the four types of institutions. After this framework was established, twelve months were to pass between the first fieldwork trip and the second. During this period, the political climate in Russia changed dramatically. Five prime ministers had sat in office; the Russian economy had collapsed and the second trip began at the beginning of the Kosovo War. As a result, I found myself being sent far away from the centre of all the upheaval to Siberia. But the change of research location had unintentional positive results in that a better research design was established, which compared the prison colonies of east Russia with those in west Russia. In the literal definition of the word, a system is a number of related parts making up a whole. The criminal justice system, however, is far from these terms. How then is it possible for a system to be a nonsystem? Police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections make up this system, each having their own distinct functions, concerns, goals, and routines. Working independently, they foster functional fragmentation, lacking cooperation and coordination (Stinchcomb & Fox, 1994). In fact, their separate and defined missions are often contradictory. Corrections are at the downstream of the system existing as a response to the other entities. They also contain no autonomy and have the least control over their domain. Additionally, they inherit the discrimination and inequalities passed through the system while being the prey of politicians, who ultimately shape every aspect of corrections. Still, they have the awesome responsibilities of providing care, custody, and control over those accused or convicted of a criminal offense. The paradigm of corrections can be defined in terms of the physical plant, program, and people. These institutions create an artificial environment; a "barbed wire bureaucracy" of hierarchical structure, closed system operations, and classifications of control (Stin