The number of prisoners in Ukraine continues to decline

The decline in the number of persons in places of detention in Ukraine continues.
As of 1 October 2014, 90,882 people were held in 177 institutions of the penitentiary service of Ukraine. This means that the number of prisoners per 100,000 population is 212 (on 1 January 2014 — 279, on 1 April — 270, on 1 July — 251, on 1 August — 224).
At the same time, 18,071 people are held in pre-trial detention centres, including 2,017 people at the pre-trial investigation stage.
In criminal-executive institutions, there are 72,273 convicts and another 538 people in six educational colonies for minors.
In 14 colonies for women, 3,182 women are serving sentences, and 1,906 people are serving life sentences. 10.7 thousand people have been sentenced to a term of more than 10 years.
The criminal-executive inspection register contains 90,914 convicts sentenced to criminal penalties not related to deprivation of liberty and administrative sanctions.
The provided statistics do not include persons serving sentences in Crimea, starting from the second half of 2014. Accordingly, the population of Crimea is not taken into account when calculating the number of prisoners per 100,000 population.
A difficult situation is developing in the colonies of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Of the 20 institutions in the Donetsk region (three pre-trial detention centres, two correctional centres, and 15 colonies), only six institutions are located in the territory controlled by Ukrainian forces, including two pre-trial detention centres. In the Luhansk region, out of a dozen and a half institutions, there are only two such institutions. In institutions in territories controlled by militants, there are approximately 12-14 thousand people.
During the hostilities, nine convicts died as a result of shelling of the colonies, and 17 were wounded. 89 people were able to leave their places of punishment. Almost half of them are those who left the Donetsk IC-124 during its shelling in July.
In recent months, more than 800 people have left the institutions of the Donetsk region, and 125 from the institutions of Luhansk. At the same time, personnel receive salaries even in the occupied territories, because everyone’s salary is transferred to bank cards.