People held in prison per 100,000 inhabitants in the EU

How it is measured

The number of people in prison reflects the work of the criminal justice system. It relates only indirectly to how much crime there is.

Eurostat warns that comparisons between countries can mislead. A country's prison population depends on how many cases its courts deal with, how often they impose a prison sentence, and how long the sentences are. It also depends on how many people are held on remand and on amnesties and pardons.

The count includes people held before or during their trial as well as sentenced prisoners, and juveniles as well as adults. In some countries it also includes people recorded neither as held before or during their trial nor as sentenced. People held only for administrative reasons, such as their immigration status, are not counted.

The figure is the number of people held on 31 December, divided by the population on 1 January of the same year. Denmark counts on 1 September, Germany on 30 November and 31 March, Slovenia on 31 January and Sweden on 1 October. A single day may not be typical of the whole year, especially after a pardon.

The dataset has no EU figure. Eurostat's own EU totals in Statistics Explained fill in a missing country with its last available year, and are not in the database.

Eurostat warns that comparisons between countries can mislead. The share depends on how many people are held before or during their trial, and also on how many people are serving a sentence and for how long.

The share is of the people held before or during their trial and those sentenced together. In Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Croatia and Luxembourg some people held are recorded in neither group, and the share leaves them out.

Cyprus has reported no number of sentenced prisoners since 2020, so it has no share.

The EU figure is Eurostat's, over the countries that reported both groups. Cyprus has been missing from it since 2020.

Breaks in the series

Eurostat marks no breaks in this dataset. Some countries' figures move sharply from one year to the next, and the metadata gives no reason for them.

Revisions

The rates of earlier years were computed with the population figures of their time. Several countries have revised their population figures since then. A change in the rate over time can therefore differ from the change in the number of people held.