About 4,000 people died in prisons over the year

According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, 3,907 people died in correctional institutions in 2012. At the same time, 28 murders were committed and 961 crimes were registered; such figures were cited by Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika in a speech to the Federation Council.

According to the report, there is a shortage of medicines and disinfectants in prisons, and violations of the regime of detention are recorded. For example, last year, more than 4.2 million roubles, over 21 thousand litres of alcohol, and over 10 thousand mobile phones were confiscated from prisoners.

The deterioration of pre-trial detention centre buildings was also noted, with every third one being over one hundred years old. Many of them are buildings from the 18th–19th centuries, where it is impossible to improve the conditions of detention to meet international standards without large capital expenditures.