Lessons of Truth: Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia informed about prisoners' salaries of 220 thousand rubles

Experts believe that prisoners, as a rule, receive hardly more than the minimum wage.

The FSIN clarified that the average salary of convicts is 20-24 thousand rubles, but in some cases it reaches 220 thousand, Izvestia writes.

"There are examples of receiving wages by convicts in the amount of 224 thousand rubles (Belgorod region), 102 thousand rubles (Novgorod region), 94 thousand rubles (Primorsky region), 80 thousand rubles (Volgograd region)", - indicated in the press service of the FSIN.

They stressed that today business is showing great interest in the use of prison labor, and in 11 Russian regions, 715 places have already been created for this category of citizens. Recall that in 2020 it became possible to create correctional centers in organizations, now such centers have been created in 76 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. There are 117 of them, designed for 8.7 thousand people.

At the same time, both the representatives of the business community and human rights activists call the prisoners' salaries announced by the FSIN as fantastic.

"The sums given by the FSIN can be called fantastic. If it were a widespread practice, people would run to go to jail, since there you can so thoroughly improve your financial situation”, - said Ivan Melnikov, vice president of the Russian division of the International Committee for the Defense of Human Rights.

Director of the Fruit and Vegetable Union Mikhail Glushkov pointed out that prisoners in conditions of a shortage of migrants can become a labor aid, but no one will pay them more than they pay migrants.

It's worth reminding that recently the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Alexander Kalashnikov, proposed to actively use the labor of prisoners instead of labor of migrants, including at large construction projects, the Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuichenko called this idea correct.

Experts criticized Kalashnikov's proposal.

In the meantime, it was decided to send the first 600 prisoners to the BAM construction site in June. Prisoners at construction sites of Russian Railways must replace migrants who are in short supply due to the coronavirus pandemic.