The article deals with the legal regime of the convict’s money, their sources of origin and the destinations for their use during detention, in the Romanian criminal law and jurisprudence, bringing to light some proposals aimed at improving the situation of some categories of detainees in a state of economic precariousness.
The objectives of the article are to determine the content of the notion of convict’s money in the current Romanian legislation, their sources of origin and the destinations for their use during detention, as well as to determine whether the current Romanian legislation complies with the requirements of the international instruments and whether the chosen legislative solutions are similar to those in other European states.
The results show that the notion of prisoner’s money should include the money due to the convicted for the work done in prison, the sums received from natural or legal persons during detention and the amounts found upon them at the arrival in the penitentiary.
It can be concluded that the amounts of money shown in the nominal account can be used for extinguishing the civil obligations established by the criminal conviction decision, without violating the rights of the detainees to receive, buy and possess goods, the right to telephone conversations, the right to petition and correspondence, the right to food, personal hygiene, the right to photocopy documents from the individual file and the right to medical treatment.
The results also show that the present Romanian legislation regarding prisoner’s money complies with the international rules, such as the „Nelson Mandela Rules”, the U.N. Convention against torture adopted in 1984, ECHR/the Convention or the European Penitentiary Rules REC (2006)2, and it is similar to the legislation of other European states, such as France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany or Austria, regarding the sources from which this money may be legally obtained, and the destinations for which this money may be used.
In the case of those detainees who do not obtain income from work, it may be beneficial for a regulation to provide, within a reasonable limit, an exemption from the attachment of their money.
For all inmates who do not have income, provisions should be made for the prison administration to bear, within a reasonable degree, the cost of national telephone calls made by convicts in order to keep in touch with their family.
The implications are to clarify the issues discussed, facilitating a unitary practice, supported by solutions in the jurisprudence.
