The key facts
- Psychiatrist Alexey Gavrish, who worked for seven years at the St. Petersburg pre-trial detention facility Kresty, links inmates' disturbances to an 'acute stress reaction'.
- According to him, police often aggravate detainees' fear by telling scary stories about the detention facility.
- In the cited case, the detainee had no mental disorders — he simply needed time to adapt.
Acute stress reaction as a frequent diagnosis
People who end up in custody often break down and stage disturbances due to an acute stress reaction. This was stated in an interview with Gazeta.Ru by psychiatrist Alexey Gavrish, who worked for seven years at the St. Petersburg prison Kresty. According to him, 'acute stress reaction' is a frequent diagnosis among inmates who end up in a pre-trial detention facility. The specialist noted that a person who ends up in prison is already frightened, and police officers, according to Gavrish, like to aggravate this condition by telling detainees scary stories about how bad things will be in the detention facility.
A case from practice: anticipation of the 'press hut'
The doctor recalled an episode when a young man was detained for robbery and refused to give testimony. Police officers told him that in the detention facility he would be placed in a 'press hut'. As a result, he ended up in an ordinary cell for three people, where there were first-timers with similar charges, and nobody there was interested in him; however, according to Gavrish, 'the process in his head was already underway, he was constantly tense'. When the detainee was taken out for a walk for the first time, in less than thirty seconds he knocked out three cellmates, although they 'hadn't the faintest idea'. After that, he bit all over his own hands — the wounds had to be stitched up.
There were no mental disorders
According to the psychiatrist, the detainee had no mental disorders in that case, and he soon came to his senses. 'He just needed a little time to adapt,' Gavrish explained. More details about life in prison, the line between violence and justice, and the motives for working in the system are described in the full interview with the publication. It was previously reported that blogger Arsen Markaryan had to work as a seamstress in a general-regime colony.
