Weird how the internet can tell me 1.6 million people died in gulags but there is no hazy estimate of how many folks have died in US prisons other than a report for 2001-2014 which hilariously misorders cause of death to downplay homicide and 'missing'.
Did those numbers improve after 1953?
Yes they improve a little bit more in the 53-56 years but the reliable numbers seem to stop there, I believe the term "gulag" switched to something like "penitentiary system" as Kruschev sought to disassociate from any systems Stalin oversaw. I have not investigated much beyond this point, I have some curiosity about it but most of what I look into is purely for propaganda and I can't see much propaganda value in discussing the post-gulag years because libs won't give a shit about talking about those. They only want to talk about the most controversial things so my focus tends to be on constructing ways to address the most controversial topics, especially in ways that relate to something they already accept in the here and now.