From 2005 to 2008, there was a significant rise in convict numbers, leading to an increase in the population within the penal system’s facilities, including corrective and educational colonies, pre-trial detention centers (jails), and prisons. While 2004 saw the lowest number of incarcerated individuals during that period at 764,000, this figure climbed to 888,000 by early 2009, marking a 16.2% increase from 2004. However, this was still substantially lower than the pre-2000 figures, which exceeded one million, comparable to the number in the entire USSR during the late 1980s.
The period between 2009 and 2022 witnessed a decline in prison populations, particularly between 2011 and 2012, when the numbers fell below those of 2004. By the start of 2023, the count had dropped to 433,000, 7.1% less than the previous year.
A majority of the incarcerated were in adult corrective colonies. Between 2010 and 2011, around 85% were held in these colonies, but this percentage gradually decreased to 83% between 2012 and 2014, 81-82% from 2015 to 2019, and 78% in 2020, dropping further to 75% in 2021. Notably, in the 1990s, about 70% of prisoners were in corrective colonies.
As of March 1, 2022, there were 351,300 individuals serving sentences in 642 corrective colonies, including 27,700 in 97 settlement colonies and 1,937 in 6 colonies for life sentences.
