“Prison overcrowding remains a critical challenge in one-third of European prison administrations”, concludes the report on Annual Penal Statistics (SPACE I) published by the Council of Europe on Friday, 18 July.
Overall, in Europe, the number of inmates per 100 places available increased from 93.5 to 94.9 between 31 January 2023 and 31 January 2024, with significant differences depending on the country.
In countries with more than 500,000 inhabitants, 15 prison administrations indicated that they have more inmates than places available.
Six prison administrations reported severe overcrowding: Slovenia (134 inmates per 100 places), Cyprus (132), France (124), Italy (118), Romania (116), and Belgium (113).
Eight other prison administrations reported moderate overcrowding (between 101 and 105): Croatia, Ireland, Sweden, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Finland, Turkey, and North Macedonia.
Thirteen prison administrations saw their prison population rates significantly increase between January 2023 and January 2024 in countries with more than 500,000 inhabitants.
Within the EU, these countries are Slovenia (+25.4%), Sweden (+15.5%), Malta (+11.1%), Croatia (+8.3%), Italy (+7.8%), Belgium (+6.8%), and Ireland (+5.4%).
Also in the EU, incarceration rates significantly declined only in Bulgaria (−14.5%), Luxembourg (−14.5%), Estonia (−12%), Lithuania (−9.4%), and Hungary (−7.3%).
Poland (202 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants), Hungary (195), the Czech Republic (180), Slovakia (179), and Latvia (175) rank among the countries with the highest incarceration rates.
With 356 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants, Turkey holds the top spot on that particular list.
“Overcrowding seriously undermines the living conditions of the prison population and the rehabilitation efforts of the prison administrations”, declared Marcelo Aebi, the head of the SPACE research team at the University of Lausanne, which has been conducting this study for the Council of Europe.
He stresses the correlation between shorter average detention periods and lower prison population rates.
In his opinion, this is an avenue that needs to be explored along with that of alternative punishments to imprisonment.
Link to the ‘SPACE I - 2024’ study: https://aeur.eu/f/hy9 (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)