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The overall imprisonment rate in Europe fell by 6.6% between 2016 and 2018 - from 109.7 to 102.5 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Council of Europe (CoE) Annual Penal Statistics for 2018 published on Tuesday.

The survey shows that Armenia, too, saw a 8.7% decrease in the imprisonment rate in the reporting period. The incarceration rate increased the most in Iceland – by 25.4%.

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%) and Romania (8.6%).

Armenia’s prisons also saw a decline of a 9.5% in the number of inmates. The prison administrations where the number of inmates grew the most was Iceland (31.5%), the survey shows.

Total capacity of penal institutions in Armenia is 5,351, resulting in prison density of 66.1, which is significantly lower than the European median level. Moreover, prison density in the country decreased from 72.0 in 2016 to 66.1 in 2017. Average number of inmates per one cell also dropped from 4.9 in 2016 to 3.6 in 2017.

Number of female inmates in the country is 125 that represents 3.5% on the total number of inmates and is lower than the European median (5.0).

Total budget spent by the Prison Administration in Armenia in 2017 was 15,02 mln euro, largely the same compared to 2016.

The countries with the highest total budget spent by prison administration in 2017 were Russia (€3.9 billion), Germany (€3.1bn), Italy (2.7bn), France (€2.7bn), and Spain (€1.5bn in total).

Armenia’s average daily expense per inmate was 11.4 euro, which is noticeably lower than the European median of 66.5 €, and nearly identical to the sum per day spent in 2016.

The largest share of sentenced inmates (42,2%) out of total 2,239 was incarcerated for the period from 5 years to 10 years. This number remains the same in comparison to 2016.