Gldani prison in Tbilisi.

Georgia showed the most significant drop in incarceration rate among Council of Europe member countries between 2008 and 2019. However, it is the second among countries with particularly high incarceration rates just after Russia, according to new statistics released on Tuesday by the CoE on the situation in European prisons covering the period until end-January 2018.

According to data Countries with particularly high incarceration rates continued to be Russia (418.3 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants), Georgia (252.2), Azerbaijan (235), Lithuania (234.9), Republic of Moldova (215.2), Czech Republic (208.8), Latvia (194.6), Poland (194.4) and Estonia (191.4). Not taking into account countries with less than 300,000 inhabitants, the lowest incarceration rates were found in Iceland (46.8), Finland (51.1), Netherlands (54.4), Sweden (56.5), Denmark (63.2), Slovenia (61.1) and Norway (65.4).

Between 2008 and 2018, incarceration rates grew considerably in countries, such as San Marino (186.6%), North Macedonia (33.6), Portugal (27.5), Serbia (19.5), Slovak Republic (19.1).  Georgia showed the most significant drop in incarceration rate (-43.3%), followed by Latvia (-34.8%), Russia (-32.4%), Cyprus (-29.9%), Estonia (-29.9%) and Croatia (-29.9%).

Prison administrations with the highest proportion of foreign inmates were Switzerland (71.4%), Austria (54.7%), Greece (52.7%), Catalonia (Spain)(43.1%), Cyprus (39.7%), Germany (38.1%), Italy (34%) and Norway (32.1%). The prison administrations where the proportion of foreign prisoners increased the most with regard to the year before were Slovenia (56%, from 9% to 14%), Croatia (44%, from 6.1% to 8.9%), Georgia (35%, from 3.5% to 4.7%) and Sweden (34%, from 21.3% to 28.5%).

Overall in Europe pre-trial detainees represented 22.4% of the total prison population. The prison administrations with the highest proportions of pre-trial detainees were the Netherlands (41.8%), Denmark (40.5%), Switzerland (39.3%), Armenia (36.7%), Italy (34.5%), Greece (32.4%), Northern Ireland (UK)(32%) and France (29.5%), excluding countries with less than 300,000 inhabitants. The prison administrations with the lowest proportions of pre-trial detainees were Czech Republic (8.2%), North Macedonia (8.4%), Romania (8.6%), Lithuania (9.3%), Poland (9.8%), BiH: Republika Srpska (11.2%), England and Wales (UK) (11.4%), Bulgaria (12.5%), Spain (Catalonia) (14.3%), Spain (State administration) (14.4%) and Georgia (14.8%).