FEDERAL PENAL ENFORCEMENT SERVICE: PRISONERS CAN RECEIVE UP TO 224 THOUSAND RUBLES PER MONTH

According to Izvestia, the prisoners work in construction, agriculture, large state projects, and they are also involved in the processing of municipal solid waste. Business is interested in attracting their labor - at the moment, more than 700 jobs have been created for prisoners in 11 regions. 

People sentenced to forced labor earn much more than prisoners.

The FPES noted that sometimes, the salaries of convicts exceed the average for the regions. For example, in the Novgorod region, they can earn up to 102 thousand rubles, in the Volgograd region, there are salaries of 80 thousand rubles, in the Primorsky Territory - 94 thousand rubles, in the Belgorod region - up to 224 thousand rubles. 

During forced labor period, isolation from society is not provided; convicts get to work on their own. If they have served at least 1/3 of the term and have had no violations, the convicts are allowed to live with their families in their own or rented apartments.

In total, there are 117 correctional centers in Russia in 76 regions, where almost 9 thousand people are engaged in work.

Experts believe that in the current conditions, when there are fewer migrants in the country, the labor of prisoners may indeed be in demand. However, the FPES’s statement on the amount of salaries raised a number of doubts, since business would hardly pay more to convicts than to migrants. In general services detachments, prisoners earn up to 5 thousand rubles, while working for a business, salaries are usually raised to 15 thousand rubles - payments rarely exceed the minimum wage. 

Experts also suggested that the FPES could calculate salaries not for a month, but for a year, or we are talking about one-off cases, because with the actual availability of salaries of up to 200 thousand rubles, ‘all Russians would run to jails’.