MOSCOW. Jan 31 (Interfax) - Russia has dropped from second to 20th place in terms of prisoner numbers over the past ten years, the director of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), Alexander Kalashnikov, said.
"According to data from an international prison research center, in terms of the number of inmates per 100,000 people, Russia has moved from second to 20th place globally [in the past decade]," Kalashnikov told senior colleagues from the Moscow branch on Thursday.
In 2019, the number of prison inmates and detainees dropped by 40,000 to 524,000, he said.
"This is the lowest figure yet in modern Russia history," Kalashnikov said.
The current dynamic attests "to the structural changes in attitudes to isolating and working with suspects, the accused, and convicts," he said.