The FSIN was established in 2004 as a new federal correctional service agency for the Ministry of Justice to replace the Soviet-era Main Administration for the Execution of Punishments (Главное управление исполнения наказаний, GUIN), formerly of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and received its current name in 2006. It claims succession from the Main Prisons Directorate of the Russian Empire founded in 1879, and directly succeeds the correctional services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union including the Gulag agency.
The Federal Penitentiary Service is considered to be successor to the Main Prison Administration, established on 27 February 1879 as the first government body dealing with maintenance and security of detention and prison facilities in the Russian Empire. On 13 December 1895, the Main Prison Administration was transferred from the Interior Ministry to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire. Following the October Revolution, a new prison administration was established by the Bolsheviks with a system composed mainly of forced labor camps across the Soviet Union. On 7 April 1930, the Gulag agency was established which oversaw an expansion of the labor camp system in the Soviet Union. In 1960, the Main Administration for Execution of Punishments (GUIN) was founded under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union following the dissolution of the Gulag agency. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia maintained GUIN unchanged as part of its own Ministry of Internal Affairs until 1998, when the prison service was returned to the Ministry of Justice after nearly a century. The FSIN was established in 2004 as part of various administrative reforms occurring in Russia reforming executive bodies from 2004 to 2005, maintaining the GUIN name but specially re-created for the Ministry of Justice. In 2006, the FSIN received its current name as the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments (Russian: Федеральная служба исполнения наказаний (ФСИН)) under the Russian Ministry of Justice. The FSIN is commonly known in English as the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Recruitment of prisoners for war in Ukraine
The Wagner Group has been mass-recruiting prisoners for the war in Ukraine (2022). As of April 2023, about 20% of captured soldiers who were prisoners are estimated to be HIV positive. With enlistment they were offered a promise of antiretroviral medications, according to an article in the New York Times.[1]
the execution, in accordance with Russian legislation penal, detention of persons suspected or accused of committing crimes, and defendants;
control the behavior of probationers and prisoners, which the court granted a deferment sentence;
ensuring the protection of the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of convicts and persons in custody;
ensuring law and order in the institutions, enforcing criminal penalties of imprisonment (hereinafter - institutions executing punishment), and in detention centers, security contained in them convicts, persons in custody, as well as employees of the correctional system, officials and citizens in the territories of these institutions and detention facilities;
protecting and escorting prisoners and persons detained on the specified routes escort, convoy of Russian citizens and stateless persons on the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as foreign citizens and stateless persons in the case of their extradition;
a prisoners and detainees in detention, detention conditions, in accordance with international law, provisions of international treaties and federal laws;
The organization of the activities to provide assistance to convicted in social adaptation;
management of the territorial bodies of the FSIN directly subordinate agencies.
Directors
FSIN Special Forces during a FAB Defense training exercise
The FSIN is headed by the Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, who is appointed and dismissed by the President of Russia on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Russia. The Director is authorized to have six deputies, including one first deputy, who are appointed and dismissed by the President.
Yuri Kalinin (2004-2009)
Alexander Reimer (2009-2012) - appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev, the first to head the federal prison system without previous service.
Gennady Kornienko (2012–present) - appointed by President Vladimir Putin.[2]
Arkadiy Gostev has been director since 2021.[3][4]
In 2007, Rabbi Aharon Gurevich was appointed the chief military rabbi, the first time to hold this position in Russia since 1917, serving as the chief rabbi for Jewish inmates and officers in Russian federal prison system.
The number of prisoners per 100,000 citizens by country.[5][6]
As of March 2019, the FSIN was responsible for 558,778 inmates, including pre-trial detainees. Only 8% of prisoners in Russia were female, and 0.2% were juvenile offenders. As of 2018, Russia had one of the highest incarceration rates in the world at 416 per 100,000 people with a prison population ranked fourth behind the United States, China, and Brazil. Before 2000 Russia was ranked as having the highest incarceration rate per 100,000 people internationally until it was overtaken by the United States. between 2000 and 2018, Russia’s prison population dropped substantially with a decline of over 400,000 inmates, thanks among other factors, to the socioeconomic reforms and overall increase in standards and quality of life.
As of 2019, the FSIN operated 954 facilities of various types located across Russia. The majority of prisons are "corrective labor colonies", a type of penal colony that combines detention with compulsory work introduced during the Soviet era, but also operates a number of traditional prisons.
Prisons for life sentence
The FSIN has eight special correctional facilities only for prisoners serving life sentences and those formerly sentenced to death:
Common Name
Full Name
Location
Opened
Notes
Ognenny Ostrov Огненный остров ("Pyatak/Volgoda Nickel")
Federal State Institution "Correctional Colony No. 5 of the Office of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Vologda Oblast"
Federal State Institution "Association of Correctional Colonies No. 2 with special economic conditions for the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Perm Territory"
Every regional office of Federal Penitentiary Service has its own special purpose unit, whose tasks include rescuing the hostages, providing security during transportation of prisoners, anti-riot tasks in penitentiary facilities etc. The special purpose unit of FSIN's Moscow department is called Saturn. Most of FSIN special purpose units were involved in special tasks during bothChechen Wars and their aftermath.
Notes
^The official name of the Federal Penitentiary Service in Russian roughly translates to "Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments/Sentences" or "Federal Service of Punishment/Sentence Fulfillment" in English.
^World Prison Brief. International Centre for Prison Studies. Use dropdown menu to choose lists of countries by region, or the whole world. Use menu to select highest-to-lowest lists of prison population totals, prison population rates, percentage of pre-trial detainees / remand prisoners, percentage of female prisoners, percentage of foreign prisoners, and occupancy rate. Column headings in tables can be clicked to reorder columns lowest to highest, or alphabetically. For detailed info for each country go to the World Prison Brief main page and click on the map links and/or the sidebar links to get to the region and country desired.
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