After Romania’s so-called “prison literature” was highly covered recently by the local and international media, the Anticorruption Department (DNA) has decided to take a closer look at this phenomenon and start an investigation.

The law in Romania allows prisoners who write scientific papers while in jail get 30 days cut from their sentences. Many of the white-collar convicts, who have been sentenced to jail for corruption following DNA's investigations, have taken advantage of this loophole to shorten their stay in jail.

Some of those sentenced to prison for corruption have managed to cut 300 days from their sentences as they have written and published as much as ten books in one or two years, according to a DNA statement. The prosecutors believe that the prisoners have got some help from university professors, representatives of publishing houses, and members of prisons’ committees in writing and having their papers published.

According to DNA, some university professors have given recommendations that attested the alleged scientific relevance of some of these papers without getting in touch with the author but only based on the books’ titles. Meanwhile, other professors allegedly agreed to validate some papers and include them on the agenda of some international scientific conferences.

Moreover, some people have agreed to write scientific papers and then let the prisoners assume their work. The books which are said to have been written in prison often quote books to which the alleged authors had no access in the prison’s library or online. Moreover, the time spent with writing these books is too short of such an action (for example 12 hours for a book of 180 pages, or 6 hours and 40 minutes for a paper of 212 pages).

When it comes to the publishing houses that printed these books, prosecutors say that they’ve accepted to publish the books without taking into account their scientific value and the book market’s interest. Moreover, the books have been printed in a very small number of copies and have never been put up for sale in the normal commercial circuit. Most often, the authors themselves have bought all the copies.

The Romanian Minister of Justice, Raluca Pruna, recently announced that she would propose the Government to cancel the provision that allowed prisoners to reduce their sentence by writing books. According to her, this provision exists in the Romanian law since 1969, but the problems started to appear in 2013 when the number of books written in prison has increased at a fast pace.

In 2012, only five convicts wrote and published books, two of whom were former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and local businessman and media mogul Sorin Ovidiu Vantu. In 2013, the number of prison authors increased to 13, and in 2014 some 50 convicts published their books from jail.

Almost 200 convicted prisoners who have been serving jail sentences in Romania have written and published books in the last three years (from January 2013 until December 2015). They wrote more than 400 books in total on various topics, mainly to get their jail sentences reduced.

Romania’s “prison literature” gets more international exposure.

Corrupt Romanian politicians could stop writing books in prisons. 

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com