Russia's prison population is now lower than at any point in modern history

The prison population in Russia is lower than at any point in modern history, according to new figures released by the Federal Penitentiary Service. There are currently 467,724 inmates in Russia today. For comparison, the prison population was 588,000 people in January 2013 and 497,000 in January 2018.

Russia partly owes its falling incarcerations to prison reforms adopted earlier this year that weigh days spent in pretrial detention as 1.5 days in a standard prison. According to estimates, the new policy instantly freed roughly 14,000 people and made early parole available to nearly 100,000 inmates.