Particularly difficult growing up

What to do with child criminals - put them in jail or help them? The Kirov public is trying to ensure that the teenager does not evade responsibility

When 13-year-old Ilya Farafonov drove his mother's Lada Kalina around the center of Kirov for the first time, the traffic police let him go for two thousand rubles. The teenager was “trusted” and that he had a passport, and that he simply forgot his driving license at home. The second time, the mother was fined, and the car was taken to a car impound. For the third time, Ilya again took the keys while his mother was sleeping, exactly a year ago, on the night of May 9-10, and knocked down three guys at a pedestrian crossing. 18-year-old Anton Luchnikov died, 19-year-old Vyacheslav Vorobyov remained disabled, 20-year-old Nikolai Kokorin spent almost a year on sick leave.

Under Russian law, children under the age of fourteen cannot be punished under criminal law, but this does not mean that they cannot in fact be punished. The court always has a choice: to leave a child who has committed a crime at home, where he will be looked after by supervisory authorities, or to send him to a special school or special school. From a formal point of view, this is helping a child, and the court, when making a decision, should think not about where the juvenile delinquent will be worse, but about where he will be better. But from the point of view of everyday life, this is just a prison for children, an institution of isolation and punishment. And public opinion, of course, favors the second option.

It is not easy for Ilya Farafonov to live in Kirov now. Video from the Kirov police cameras capturing the accident appeared on the Internet, and local residents decided that special schools were not enough for him - they turned to United Russia with a proposal to lower the age of criminal responsibility. Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh was dissatisfied with the decision of the court, which refused to send Farafonov to a special school, despite the request of the commission on juvenile affairs. The case is now being re-examined. Ilya himself says that if he is sent to a special school, he will commit suicide. Doctors confirm: he has already cut his veins several times.

A KILLER ON THE LAW

A video appeared, demonstrations began under the windows of the Farafonovs, and on the Internet, activists began to demand punishment for the juvenile delinquent: next to the photo of Farafonov, the inscription “Killer? Free!!!" For the first three months after that fatal accident, he was afraid to leave the house. They wrote about him that he was a spoiled son of rich parents, blue and emo. He had to leave the gymnasium and study at home, as an external student. “Everyone turned away, only two of all my acquaintances supported me,” he says, looking around out of habit. For a year now, a psychologist has been working with the guy, they turned to a psychiatrist for help, but the level of anxiety does not decrease, the doctors wrote in the conclusion for the court. During this time, he was almost blind in his right eye. “The boy has optic neuritis, the eye sees only 10%,” says his attending ophthalmologist Irina Domnina.

Elena Farafonova has been in the legal profession for 27 years. She is raising her son alone - his father died when he was four and a half years old. A year ago, she ran to the intensive care unit, where the broken Nikolai Kokorin lay, with a mountain of medicines prescribed by the doctor. And then, for almost an hour, she stood in front of the doors of the ward, where the guys shot down by Ilya were lying, - she gathered her courage to ask for forgiveness and offer material assistance. The mother of Nikolai Kokorin did not refuse money, Farafonova still pays for his treatment, the rest have filed lawsuits.

All three shot down guys were from the village of Uni, 300 km from Kirov. The deceased Anton Luchnikov was raised by his grandmother, two days later he was to be taken to the army. “No one cares about our grief, whether they judge it or not - we don’t know anything,” says the grandmother of the deceased, Lyudmila Yemelyanova. “Who we are for the Farafonovs are village people, and they are the urban elite, we didn’t see even three kopecks from them for the funeral.” A month ago, Emelyanova was awarded compensation of 300,000 rubles, she has not yet received them. Usually, the Kirov authorities give 100,000 in case of an accident, but this is a special case.

Vyacheslav Vorobyov, who remained disabled, was awarded 250,000. His mother, a primary school teacher, does not believe that Ilya Farafonov is ill. She almost cries: “Slava’s hand does not grow together, maybe he will never be able to work. And that mother is a lawyer, so they come up with: either he is mentally ill, or he goes blind. I don't believe them." She does not thirst for blood, but says that if he is like everyone else, then "let him be sent to a colony." And many in Kirov agree with her.

NEW WORLD

Two years ago, pupils of the Oryol special school for teenagers, having drunk vodka, demolished a wooden fence and broke free. They were quickly caught, they put up a stronger fence, and the leadership was completely changed. There are 19 such schools throughout the country. In the Oryol school, the only one in the Kirov region, juvenile delinquents are corrected by labor on the machines of the 70s, compulsory classes in circles and lack of free time. The contingent is from 11 to 16. “They have already tried everything: drugs, alcohol, and women,” says senior teacher Nina Devetyarova, “they must be controlled all the time. With discipline, everyone is better, and there are fewer escapes.”

Teenagers are divided into sections, as in the army. For a day without incident, the department receives 50 points, for winning an event - 20. Attempted unauthorized absence - minus 100, a fight - minus 50. Prizes: TV, sofa, DVD, even a satellite dish. But the main thing is travel. The leaders have already been to Kazan, to the dolphinarium, go to film premieres in Kirov, go to theaters. “Most of them were vagrants, didn't go to school, and apart from their alcoholic parents, they didn't see anything in their lives,” says Tatiana Taroshchina, director of the school. “We are opening a new world for them.” This does not always help: a boy in the city looks at the girls - and hits the run. In spring and autumn, this desire is exacerbated.

13-year-old Kolya, who looks like just an angel, got here for putting a member in the mouth of a second-grader. Three brothers were walking down the street and saw a bum. They took sticks and beat him until his brains flowed. But most of them are theft. Sasha Bogatyrev from the village of Urulga near Chita stole non-ferrous metal with his brothers, took all the blame. Their mother died, the children handed over the metal, and they lived. At the end of May he will be 16 and will go home. Zhenya Panyukhin from Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region, is an orphan, sentenced for stealing DVDs and cell phones. “We climbed around the dachas,” he says, “and then in the boarding school they exchanged them for something.” 11-year-old Seryozha Kolobkov from Novosibirsk, a lively dark-eyed boy, climbed into the kiosks, dragged pasta, cereals, chocolates. Phlegmatic Anton from Kurgan was chained to the radiator so that he would not interfere with drinking, and often forgot to feed him, he also got here for theft. He still collects crumbs for everyone and always asks for more.

Every fifth in the school - from a correctional school, with mental retardation, before such people were not taken to the "special school". And now they take people with hepatitis, they say, they will soon allow HIV-infected people, sighs the head of the medical unit Nikolai Mokerov. “He goes to the circle for a whole year, and then asks: “Did I go to the circle?” 15-year-olds have one or two classes of education,” says Igor Tebenkov, deputy for the regime.

There are children from wealthy families, such come here for drugs, but they are few. Director Taroshchina is convinced that anyone can be corrected in their institution - they have enough teachers, psychologists, and doctors. “Any child can be approached if they are engaged,” she says. And the club at the school is new, the director adds, the whole district is envious, and there are more medicines in the medical unit than in any pharmacy, and teenagers receive good working specialties. School staff are convinced that most children are much better off here than at home. Ilya Farafonov, who has a normal house and a loving mother, believes that it is better to be in a noose.

TO PAY THE BILLS

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, five years ago, teenagers committed 151,000 crimes, which is almost one and a half times more than in 2009. And against the background of general crime, the share of teenage crime also decreased by one and a half times. And there are now just over 7,000 teenagers behind bars - half as many as five years ago. This is due to the demographic crisis, and not because children have become better, experts explain. And the statistics are such that one in five, having been in a special school or special school, ends up behind bars. And 40% of those who served time in a juvenile colony end up in the adult zone.

“We arrived at a colony for minors,” Rustem Maksudov from the Judicial-Legal Reform Center gives an example. - The boy killed and burned the bum. He says: at first it was very difficult morally, but as soon as he got here, everything got better - an authoritative article, everyone respects. Another thing, he says, restorative justice procedures - recidivism in only 1% of cases.

Restorative justice is a whole complex of measures and approaches. Together with specialist mediators, children, their parents and, most importantly, the victims sit down at the table and decide what to do. “Often just talking is enough,” says mediator Lyudmila Karnozova. “Teens would like to ask for forgiveness and make amends for the harm they have caused, but they don’t know how.” Such programs have been operating in a number of regions for many years, but they are not used in the Kirov region. Most often, issues with juvenile thieves or hijackers are resolved in this way - the children repent and get a job during the holidays to compensate for the damage caused.

Of course, if there are dead, severe injuries, the situation is different. Karnozova explains that instead of solving an already very difficult problem, state institutions only increase grief and torment - in the case of Farafonov, for example, of his family and the families of the victims. “The whole system is geared towards baiting, quartering a child, this is a kind of collective madness,” Maksudov confirms.

Relatives of the victims signed an appeal to United Russia to lower the age for criminal prosecution. In England, this age was lowered to ten years after two 10-year-olds brutally murdered three-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool in February 1993. At the end of 1994, in the Norwegian town of Trondheim, two six-year-old boys brutally murdered five-year-old Seely Redergaard. There was no question of their isolation and punishment. On the contrary, the urban community took the boys on bail. But in both England and Norway, one of the child murderers still later, having matured, went to jail. “Despite this, the mother of the deceased Seely said more than once that the Norwegian system is still better,” says psychologist Victoria Schmidt, who has studied juvenile delinquency in different countries.

“I thought a million times about what happened. And I would like to ask these guys and their families for forgiveness, but I don’t know how. And I don't know how to fix what I did. I can't even imagine this meeting, - says Ilya Farafonov. “Yes, and who will believe me?” But the grandmother of the deceased Anton Luchnikov had already forgiven him in her soul: “Mother must be punished for not raising her like that, and, as in the proverb, “it’s better to beat with a ruble than with a club.” Elena Farafonova says that she will pay the bills, but asks not to deprive her of her only son. And to do with him, as it is written in the law, based on the interests of the child. Although he believes that there is little hope: “If the governor has publicly spoken out more than once about Ilya, do not expect mercy - we immediately take everything under the hood. Who will go against the opinion of the first person in the region?

Nikita Belykh confirmed to Newsweek that this situation is indeed under his personal control, but he does not want to put pressure on the court and express his opinion. One can argue for a long time about whether a teenager is being re-educated in a special institution or not, Belykh continues, and the situation there is not ideal, but this means that they need to improve their work, and not refuse punishment: “The complete absence of punishment can give rise to a sense of impunity.”