Covid-19 pandemic helped reduce the prison population in Europe, including in Romania

The Covid-19 pandemic contributed to reducing the prison population in Europe between January 2020 and January 2021, consolidating a ten-year-long trend in most European states, according to the Council of Europe’s Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations for 2021, released today.

On 31 January 2021, there were 1,414,172 inmates detained in the 49 prison administrations of Council of Europe member states that provided this information (out of 52), which corresponds to a European prison population rate of 102 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants. In the 48 prison administrations for which information is available for both 2020 and 2021, this rate fell from 104.3 to 101.9 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants (-2.3%).

The proportion of inmates serving sentences for theft fell by 8.7%, whilst the percentage of prisoners sentenced for less than one year dropped by 25.5%. “The decrease in these indicators could be an indirect consequence of the lockdowns, which decreased street crime. The drop in the rate of admissions into prisons was also particularly steep in 2020, corroborating the influence of the restrictions of movement related to Covid-19. Fewer interactions between people imply less contact crime in public spaces, fewer arrests and persons in detention”, according to Professor Marcelo Aebi, Head of the SPACE research team from the University of Lausanne.

Therefore, out of the 48 prison administrations that provided data for both January 2020 and January 2021, the incarceration rate only grew in three states with more than 300,000 inhabitants – Sweden (8.2%), Romania (6.6%), and North Macedonia (5.4%) – as well as in Andorra (+22.3%), where because of the small size of its prison population small increases can imply significant impact on percentual increases or decreases. The incarceration rate fell the most in Cyprus (-28.3%), Montenegro (-24.4%), Slovenia (-22.1%), Lithuania (-13.4%), Finland (-13.2%), Georgia (-12.1%), France (-11.7%), Armenia (-11.5%), Italy (-11.1%), UK (Northern Ireland) (-10.9%), Portugal (-10.8%), and Latvia (-10.3%). The incarceration rate decreased also in Iceland (-9.7%), Switzerland (-9.2%), Ireland (-8.9%), Turkey (-8.9%), Albania (-8.7%), Czech Republic (-8.4%), Austria (-8.2%), Poland (-8.1%), UK (Scotland) (-8%), Netherlands (-7.9%), Russia (-7.9%), Luxembourg (-7.5%), Germany (-6.9%), Spain (-6.1%), Denmark (-6%), and Ukraine (-5.2%). It remained stable in 14 prison administrations.

Overall, in Europe, prison density fell by 5.3% from 31 January 2020 to 31 January 2021 (from 90.2 to 85.4 inmates per 100 places available). According to the information provided by the prison administrations, six of them reported prison density of more than 105 inmates per 100 places, an indicator of serious overcrowding: Romania (119 inmates per 100 places), Greece (111), Cyprus (111), Belgium (108), Turkey (108) and Italy (106), taking into account countries with more than 300,00 inhabitants. The prison density was also above 100 persons per 100 available places in France (104), Sweden (101) and Hungary (101).

In Europe, overall, 15.3% of the prison population were foreigners. Prison administrations with the highest proportions of foreign inmates (in countries with more than 300,000 inhabitants) were Luxembourg (73%), Switzerland (71%), Greece (60%), Austria (50%), Catalonia (Spain) (48%), Belgium (44%), Cyprus (43%), Estonia (33%), Italy (32%) and Slovenia (32%). Prison administrations with the lowest percentage of foreign inmates were Romania (1%), Republic of Moldova (1.2%), Poland (1.9%), Lithuania (1.9%), Slovak Republic (2.1%), Azerbaijan (2.2%), Ukraine (2.4%) and Albania (2.4%).

The average percentage of pre-trial detainees across Europe was 21.7% of the total prison population. On 31 January 2021, the prison administrations with the highest percentages of pre-trial detainees were Albania (50%), Armenia (47%), Switzerland (46%), the Netherlands (45%), Luxembourg (43%), Montenegro (42%), Denmark (41%), UK (Northern Ireland) (40%), Belgium (38%), Croatia (36%), Ukraine (36%), Slovenia (33%) and Italy (32%), not taking into account countries with less than 300,000 inhabitants. The prison administrations with the lowest percentages of pre-trial detainees were the Czech Republic (8.1%), Romania (10.4%), Lithuania (10.9%), Russia (11.8%) and North Macedonia (12%).

The survey shows that the average length of imprisonment in Europe during 2020 was 8.9 months. Countries with the longest average term of imprisonment were Azerbaijan (35 months), Portugal (31), Republic of Moldova (31), Russia (29), Ukraine (29), Czech Republic (25), Romania (25), Greece (23) Spain (22), Italy (18), Georgia (16), Albania (15), Estonia (15), Slovak Republic (15) and North Macedonia (14).