“Silicon Zone”: Russian prisoners proposed to be turned into IT specialists

Over an unusual project puzzled in the Federal Penitentiary Service

Up to 50-60 thousand IT-specialists could be trained annually in … Russian colonies. An ambitious project for the Federal Penitentiary Service was developed by a convict (formerly a programmer) and his friend, with whom he studied together at the Skolkovo school.

As it became known to MK, Akim Denisov, convicted under a “narcotic” article, expressed ideas about how prisoners could be employed while still in the Butyrka pre-trial detention center (he was there for more than two years). Once in the colony, he began to study the topic of possible training of IT specialists in places of deprivation of liberty. His friend helped him in this. The programmers eventually created a joint project, which was presented to the experts.

According to their study, the average length of time spent in a colony today is about three years. The average term for mastering an IT specialty is six months. It turns out that after a specialist is trained (if training starts immediately after his arrival), he can work for at least two years behind bars in his specialty.

At the same time, motivated, capable convicts make up 5-15% of the total number annually, which is approximately 50-60 thousand people. Interestingly, access to the Internet is not required for prisoners. The authors of the project have developed a version of the internal platform of the Federal Penitentiary Service for recording the activity of the prisoner, controlling communication with the external Internet (if any), communication with the customer’s team, etc.

On average, a database developer in Russia receives about 80 thousand rubles (convicted in a colony, employed in the clothing industry – about 7 thousand).