Translated material
67% of the FSIN budget was spent in 2015 on maintaining department employees
The bulk of the FSIN budget is spent not on the maintenance of prisoners, but on department employees, according to a report by the Institute of Problems of Modern Society.
Almost 70% of the budget of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) in 2015 was spent on the maintenance of correctional facility personnel, reports the Institute of Problems of Modern Society (IPSO) in its report. The authors of the study note that costs for FSIN employees are “growing at a faster pace” in relation to costs for prisoners - from 2012 to 2015, total payments to FSIN personnel increased by more than 30%, and costs for social security of personnel increased by almost 1.5 times, while the volume of government purchases ensuring the maintenance of prisoners increased by only 7%.
Meanwhile, in 2015, the budget of the Federal Penitentiary Service exceeded 300 billion rubles, but only a tiny part of these funds was spent directly on prisoners, according to the IPSO. “This means that with a total “prison population” of 650 thousand people, budget expenditures per prisoner amount to almost half a million rubles per year. The growth compared to 2003 is simply fantastic – almost 10 times,” the study says.
The authors of the report explain that although the FSIN does not report on its personnel composition to taxpayers, the agency is still obliged to provide information on the state of the national penitentiary system to the Council of Europe. According to the data presented by the department, 22% of FSIN employees (more than 65 thousand people) are employees working outside of correctional institutions. 11.1% of FSIN employees are engaged in educational activities and vocational training. 12.5% are health workers. Almost 50% of the employees working inside Russian penitentiary institutions (112 thousand people) are indicated by the FSIN in its report as “other” personnel.
“But the number of penitentiary personnel, that is, employees who are responsible for regime and supervision, is almost three times less than the European average - 26% and 66%, respectively, of the total number of employees working inside institutions. Among European countries with a prison population of more than 10 thousand people, Russia ranks second in terms of the level of workload on regime and supervision officers: on average in Europe there are 3.6 prisoners per prison officer, in Russia - 11.1,” write experts from the Institute of Problems modern society.
The IPSO is confident that only a significant reduction in the staff of the “prison bureaucracy” will help both reduce budget costs for the maintenance of the department and streamline the activities of the FSIN.