MOSCOW, February 26 - RAPSI. The government has changed the state penitentiary system development program for 2007-2016, reducing the number of planned European-standard pre-trial detention centers from 26 to 18.

The changes were posted on the government website on Tuesday.

The program was approved in 2006 and called for building 26 new pre-trial detention centers and for modernizing and repairing prisons that were in poor condition.

The revised program includes building 18 pre-trial detention centers and reducing the funding from 76.5 billion rubles ($2.5 billion) to 73.8 billion rubles ($2.4 billion).

By 2017, the number of available pre-trial detention centers in Russia will grow to at least 241, taking into account the possible closure of one such center.

The conditions in most of these centers will be brought in line with Russian law, and 18 will meet international standards.

Russia is reforming its penal system with the aim of eventually replacing today's prisons with two types of institutions - milder-security facilities for convicts whose crimes were not serious and tighter-security centers for dangerous criminals.

A statement made by Lt.-Gen. Eduard Petrukhin, the first deputy director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, led to a scandal last year.

The high-ranking official termed the penal system reform a fiasco and said that it needed to be revised, as it had been planned without input from human rights activists.

The statement came after prisoners rallied against the administration of Prison No. 6 in Kopeisk in 2012.

Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov admitted that there were insufficient funds to reform the penal system.