Already in 2023, the Council of Europe identified Spain as one of the 48 countries belonging to this organization with the largest prison population, when it was in sixth place with a total of 55,095 at the beginning of 2022.
However, regarding the overcrowding and occupation of prisons, in 2022 the Space 21 study on the reality in this sector in the Council of Europe countries revealed that Spain has an occupancy rate of 73.4 prisoners per 100 places, which places it 9.1 points below the European average, equal to 82.5.
Lithuania bucks the trend
Within the EU perimeter there are also examples in the opposite direction. The number of detained people in Lithuania has steadily decreased over the last 5 years: on 1 January 2019, the number of detained people was 6485; on January 1, 2020, by 6138; on January 1, 2021, by 5,320; on January 1, 2022, by 5,086; on January 1, 2023, by 4,973; on January 1, 2024, by 4,551; and January 1, 2024-10, by 4,501. Five years ago, Lithuania was the EU’s “leader” in prison numbers, with 220 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. With a significant drop in the number of prisoners, Lithuania now has 155 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, ranking sixth in the EU.
The decline in the prison population is mainly due to changes in Lithuanian society. These changes include a growing economy, new opportunities in the job market and cultural changes. These factors, together with the success of the fight against organized crime, are contributing to the general decline in crime in Lithuania (for example, according to data from the Department of Informatics and Communication of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania, in 2019 there were recorded 51494 potential criminal offenses in preliminary investigation institutions and 45256 in 2023). It is worth mentioning that the structure (composition) of crime is also changing, with a decrease in the number of murders and other serious violent crimes. Colleagues in the Police Department could provide a more precise answer on the quantity of such crimes committed.
At the same time, the Lithuanian legal context and changes in penal (alternative sanctions) and criminal (strengthening the socialization process) policies are changing. In recent years, penal policy in Lithuania has been shaped according to criteria of proportionality, with scholars and experts continually pointing out that broad application of criminal responsibility or long prison sentences for non-dangerous crimes are ineffective and inappropriate.
