The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has proposed that the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) approve rules for the use of mobile phones by convicts serving their sentences at correction centers and penal colonies of minimal security level with relaxed imprisonment conditions and social rehabilitation centers.

As the press service of State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine reported on Friday, now people imprisoned at such establishments have the right to wear civilian clothes, spend money without limits and possess personal valuables, live with their families within the bounds of the residential area on which the establishment is located (although only under permission of the administration of the establishment), to buy houses, and take short-term trips beyond the bounds of establishments. In connection to this, the ban on buying, possessing, and using mobile phones is illogical.

Moreover, it is impossible to control the use of mobile phones by prisoners when they go outside the correction centers.

However, such prisoners will have some restrictions on the use the mobile phones. In particular, the mobile phones that prisoners carry will have to be registered in a special journal at police control rooms, and prisoners could have only one mobile phone.

If the convicted has a mobile phone not registered at the police control room, this mobile phone will be seized, and returned only after the prisoner is set free.

As reported, the corresponding bill on amendments into the Penal Execution Code was approved at the government's sitting on December 19, 2012, and sent for consideration by parliament.