In Ukraine the number of prisoners in colonies halved

At present, about 60 thousand people are serving sentences in Ukrainian penitentiary facilities.

As reported by Oleg Gunaza, the Director of the Department of Production Activities and Resources of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, at a press conference at Ukrinform news agency.

“Over the past year from 100 thousand prisoners, who were contained in our facilities, about 60 thousand were left at the end of the year”, – said Gunaza.

He pointed out that due to the objective reasons “part of the area is idle” and therefore there is a need to reduce the colonies.

However, according to Denis Chernyshov, the Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine, the number of citizens held in pre-trial detention centres is now roughly the same as it was before the adoption of the so-called “Savchenko law”.

“About 7500 persons were released from prisons at the end of 2016 due to the “Savchenko law”… Of course, it unloaded pre-trial detention centres for some time. Currently the fullness of the pre-trial detention centres is about the same as before the adoption of the “Savchenko law””, – he said.

According to Chernyshov, this situation exists, in particular, due to the fact that in some cases the lawyers are working to prolong the duration of residence of suspects in the pre-trial detention centres.