MOSCOW, March 25 - RAPSI. Social rehabilitation is needed to prevent former convicts from committing repeat crimes, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said on Monday at a government crime prevention commission meeting.

He said regional authorities should participate in helping convicts who have served their prison terms to re-adapt socially.

The meeting was attended by representatives of federal ministries and agencies, lawmakers, and Civic Chamber members. The heads of the regional agencies of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Penitential Service took part via videolink.

Repeat crimes are directly and obviously linked to inadequate social rehabilitation, Kolokoltsev said.

He pointed out the increasingly inhomogeneous population of prisons, which leads to difficulties in maintaining order in such facilities.

"Convicts serving their sentences often continue to engage in criminal activity," he said. "For example, they account for a large share of mobile phone fraud cases."
He also called for improving the conditions in prisons, so that they meet the necessary requirements, adding that "public control should play a role here."

One of the more high-profile cases was a riot in a prison in Kopeisk in the Chelyabinsk Region. Over 200 convicts took part in a protest demanding a milder regime and the release of several inmates from punitive confinement. Their relatives later gathered outside the prison and 30 were arrested. An investigation was launched in connection with the riot.