MOSCOW, January 24 (RAPSI) – The number of convicts serving their sentences in prison has dropped by 32%, from 730,000 to 497,000 people, since 2008, the Federal Penitentiary Service’s (FSIN) director Gennady Kornienko has said during the meeting with the State Duma lawmakers.

The number of people placed in detention facilities has decreased by 32% as well, from 153,000 to 104,000 individuals, he added.

According to Kornienko, legislation in the sphere of execution of criminal punishment is being updated in cooperation with the lower house of parliament. In the last two years, over 30 laws were adopted including those granting a right to one long meeting a year for life convicts and a possibility of meeting with children outside the prison territory for single parents.

Starting January 1, 2017, the Federal Penitentiary Service began invoking such type of punishment as compulsory labor in places determined by bodies of the penal system, Kornienko said. For this purpose, there were established 8 correction centers and 15 separate areas of penitentiary facilities for 1900 people. Last year, about 600 convicts were sent to compulsory labor.