Bericht des Europarats über die Situation in europäischen Gefängnissen, 29.4.2014 (engl. Originalfassung)
European states are failing to significantly reduce overcrowding in prisons despite the increasing number of offenders monitored by probation agencies, according to the 2012 Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics (known as the SPACE I and SPACE II reports), which were published today.
From 2011 to 2012 the number of inmates detained in Europe´s prisons fell from 99.5 to 98 inmates for every 100 places available. Despite a reduction of nearly 90,000 individuals in the prison population (a 5% decrease from 1,825,000 in 2011 to 1,737,000 in 2012), overcrowding remained a serious problem in 21 prison administrations across Europe. Serbia, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary and Belgium continued to be states where the situation was most acute.
The reports conclude that judicial bodies are often issuing very short custodial sentences, which means that on average 20% of inmates are serving sentences of less than one year. Although there is a significant increase in the number of persons under the supervision or care of probation services (up 13.6% from 2011 to 2012, and 29.6% since 2010), many countries are often not introducing enough alternatives to imprisonment, and are seldom using these to replace pre-trial detention: only 7% of defendants awaiting trial were placed under the supervision of probation services.
The Council of Europe Committee of Ministers and other bodies such as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) have recommended to member states that they address the problem of overcrowding vigorously and increase the chances of reintegration of offenders. Recalling that deprivation of liberty should be a sanction of last resort, they have called on governments to make the widest possible use of alternatives to custodial sanctions, such as probation, community services, treatment orders or restrictions of the liberty of movement by means of curfew orders or electronic monitoring.
Theft (20%) and drug trafficking (17%) remained the most common offences for which inmates had been sentenced to imprisonment. 13% of the inmates were held in custody for homicide.
In 2011, the average daily amount spent per inmate increased to 103€, up from 93€ in 2010. However there were great disparities between countries, those with the highest expenses generally being those with smaller prison populations.
The SPACE survey is conducted for the Council of Europe by the Criminology and Criminal Law Institute of the University of Lausanne. The 2012 SPACE I survey contains information from 47 out of 52 prison administrations in the 47 Council of Europe member states, whereas SPACE II contains information from 46 probation services.
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