The prison authorities have snubbed an annual Council of Europe report on prison populations in member states, ignoring a questionnaire sent in September.
The 2021 penal statistics report covers 49 of the 52 prison facilities in the 47-member Council of Europe as Corradino Correctional Facility (CCF) and two of three facilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina ignored the request for information.
Known as SPACE I, the report focuses on prison populations and the penal institutions in which they are held.
It is compiled by a research team from the University of Lausanne.
Fewer prisoners across Europe in 2021
This year’s report found that the COVID-19 pandemic helped reduce the prison population in Europe between January 2020 and January 2021.
Key factors contributing to the decrease were the reduction in certain types of crimes in the context of the restrictions on movement during the pandemic, a slower judicial system, also owing to the restrictions, as well as schemes that saw some countries release prisoners early to prevent or reduce the spread of the virus.
There were just over 1.4 million inmates detained by the 49 prison administrations of Council of Europe member states at the end of January 2021. This corresponds to a European prison population rate of 102 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants.
The proportion of inmates serving time for theft fell by 8.7 per cent, while the percentage of prisoners sentenced for less than one year dropped by more than a quarter.
The restrictions in movement of inmates related to the pandemic could also explain the significant fewer escapes ‒ 2.2 escapes per 10,000 inmates in 2020, compared to 8.2 per 10,000 inmates in 2019.
“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. Fewer interactions between people imply less contact crime in public spaces, fewer arrests and persons in detention”, according to Marcelo Aebi, head of the SPACE research team from the University of Lausanne.
Out of the prison administrations that provided data for both 2020 and 2021, the incarceration rate – the number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants – fell in 30 penal administrations, remained stable in 14 and only grew in three, considering only countries with more than 300,000 inhabitants.
If one compared the situation with that observed 10 years ago, the only country with more than 300,000 inhabitants that had a higher prison population in 2021 than in 2011 was Turkey.
The incarceration rate fell the most in Cyprus (-28.3 per cent), Montenegro (-24.4 per cent) and Slovenia (-22.1 per cent).
The prison administrations where the rate grew were those of Sweden (+8.2 per cent), Romania (+6.6 per cent) and North Macedonia (+5.4 per cent).
Malta last participated in the SPACE I report in 2020 when it emerged that it was one of two countries with the highest increases in the incarceration rate.
With 793 prisoners in 2020, Malta’s rate stood at 154.1 per 100,000 of the population, well above the 116.7 average for the rest of Europe.