The prison population in Russia has fallen to its lowest level in more than 20 years
In Russia, the number of people in prisons and pretrial detention centers has fallen to its lowest level since the early 2000s, in part due to the mass deployment of prisoners to the war against Ukraine.
This was stated by Arkady Gostev, Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation.
According to him, while there were 465,000 people in detention facilities at the end of 2021, there are now 282,000, of whom 85,000 are being held in pretrial detention centers.
Thus, during the full-scale war, the number of prisoners in the Russian Federation has decreased by 183,000 people.
Gostev acknowledged that this is influenced by the recruitment of contract soldiers for the Russian army.
In addition, he said, about 16,000 prisoners are currently involved in manufacturing products for the needs of the Russian army. In 2025, such products were manufactured worth 5.5 billion rubles.
For comparison, in 2001, there were about one million prisoners in Russia.
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