Not all of them are so imbued with a sense of civic duty that they come on their own to the institution from which one can leave only after serving the sentence. Today there are 4,500 such people in the Czech Republic. Among them are not only those who caused a traffic accident or stole a car stereo, but also murderers.
A few months ago, newspapers wrote about cases of robberies of gas stations by a group of persons of Czech and Ukrainian nationalities. The Czech, who served as the gang's driver, came to serve his prison sentence after the trial, unlike his Ukrainian accomplices. They are not so naive.
Or, for example, Vratislav Kutal, a businessman in the diesel fuel trade. It was a high-profile case linked to scams that allowed millions to be evaded from taxes, and contract killings. For this, Kutal received ten years in prison, which still awaits him.
At the same time, most of those evading punishment do not violate the law. It is enough to stock up on a doctor's certificate saying that instead of prison, the "patient" needs a sanatorium. This has become so popular that the Czech Minister of Justice instructed courts to conduct an investigation of all cases where a convict evades imprisonment for more than six months. Such tricks will be considered criminally punishable only when a new criminal code is adopted, that is, no earlier than 2005.