Europe · Eastern Europe

Russia

High confidence

Verified 20 May 2026 · Data dated 1 May 2026

Fresh · 1mo ago

Population has declined steadily since the 2000 peak above 1 million. FSIN operates a tiered penal-colony system rather than conventional prisons.

Compare Russia World Prison Brief page

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

Prison population

282,000

Year: 2026

Rate per 100,000

197

Per 100,000 residents

Occupancy

67%

At or under capacity

Pre-trial / remand

30.1%

Share not yet sentenced

Female prisoners

8.9%

Foreign nationals

7.1%

Conditions risk — across 1000 facilities

Average of our computed Conditions Risk Score across the country's facilities. Methodology · Browse highest-risk

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national average

1000 unknown

abolitionist in practice on capital punishment. Last known execution: 1996.Methods: firing squadICCPR-OP2 (death-penalty abolition protocol): not a signatory

Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

Source: Amnesty International + Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide.

2,181 documented human-rights cases →

Historical detention sites

Soviet Gulag system (506)

How Russia compares

vs Europe (16) & global averages

Rate per 100,000this: 197 · region: 102 · global: 214

Occupancy ratethis: 67% · region: 98% · global: 125%

Pre-trial sharethis: 30% · region: 28% · global: 32%

The vertical ticks mark the global (grey) and regional (amber) means. Bars are clipped at the high end for readability.

Prison population over time

Annual figures, latest survey year

2000: 1,060,404-70.5% over 24y2024: 313,304

Source: World Prison Brief / unodc

What we know — and don't

Transparency about the boundaries of this data. Click sources where linked.

What we don't know

Conditions inside the strict-regime colonies remain opaque; foreign monitoring access severely restricted since 2022.

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Held

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See all 1,219 prisons in Russia →

Data completeness

100%

Score based on how many fields are populated. We surface this so you know where the gaps are.

National population: 143,500,0002026
Source-verified: 20 May 2026
Source links: 3 cited

Sources

Direct citations for the figures on this page.

Primary reference
Ð¤ÐµÐ´ÐµÑÐ°Ð»ÑÐ½Ð°Ñ ÑÐ»ÑÐ¶Ð±Ð° Ð¸ÑÐ¿Ð¾Ð»Ð½ÐµÐ½Ð¸Ñ Ð½Ð°ÐºÐ°Ð·Ð°Ð½Ð¸Ð¹ (FSIN) — Russian Federation
OVD-Info — OVD-Info
World Prison Brief (ICPS, Birkbeck) — Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research
See /data-sources for our methodology.

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: RUS