#Prison: Latest figures on European prison populations

The latest Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics – known as the SPACE reports – was presented at a media briefing at the Council of Europe office in Brussels Tuesday 8 March 2016.

The reports include comprehensive country-by-country data on prison populations from across the 47 Council of Europe member states.

Some of the key findings include the following:

• Despite a slow decrease in overcrowding, Europe’s prisons remained close to capacity in 2014, holding over 1,6 million people in total;
• The average cost per inmate per day in 2013 was €99, ranging from €2,68 per day in Ukraine to over €200 per day in countries including the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden); the total cost across 45 prison administrations was over €27 billion;
• Overcrowding remains a problem in 1 in 4 prison administrations, including in Hungary (142 inmates per 100 places available), Belgium (129), Greece (121), France (114.5) and Italy (109.8);
• On average, foreign inmates represented 21.7% of the total prison population, ranging from under 1% in Poland to over half in countries including Switzerland (73%), Greece (59.3%) and Austria (50.1%); on average, 34.6% of foreign inmates were from EU countries;
• On average, suicide accounted for 21% of deaths in penal institutions in 2013, including 92% in Norway, 63% in France, 46% in Sweden, 41% in Germany and 35% in England/Wales; 34% of prisoners who committed suicide were in pre-trial detention, and 5% were female.

The statistics were presented by lead researcher Professor Marcelo Aebi from the University of Lausanne. 

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