NIZHNY TAIGIL, Russia — Like a scene from a felon’s daydream, all the inmates at a prison compound here in western Russia — some 2,000 of them — are former policemen, prosecutors, tax inspectors, customs agents and judges.

Most of the day, they mill about, glum-faced, dressed in prison clothes. The only visible hints of the policemen’s former employment are the occasional buzz cuts.

Russian penitentiary authorities offered a rare tour of this specialized penal colony recently with an eye to demonstrating that these inmates receive no privileges.

In some ways, the officials proved their point. At least as far as accommodations go, the prison is as grim as most. Inside the walls of unpainted concrete slabs, barbed wire slashes the prison yards into zones for those doing hard time and minor offenders. And like the men and women they put behind bars, former police officers here live in rough-hewn brick barracks, toil in a workshop and eat boiled buckwheat and cabbage.