AKSAKOVO (Moscow Region), June 18 (RIA Novosti) – The number of minors behind bars in Russia has fallen by over 70 percent in the last five years, a prison service official said on Tuesday.
Speaking at an international conference on working with convicted minors, the head of the Russian prison service’s department for social, psychological and educational work, Valery Trofimov, said that there had been a 4.5-fold decrease in the number of minors in Russian jails over the past five years.
There are currently 2,200 young people being held at 46 correctional facilities in Russia, Trofimov told Russian media, adding that most come from broken homes or the state care system.
He attributed this decline in part to the “humanization” of the state’s approach to young people who break the law, as well as to more effective prevention.
However, he noted that the decline in Russia's birth rate in the 1990s was also partly responsible.
