By IPS Correspondents
LONDON, Mar 2 2003 (IPS)

Britain is the prison capital of western Europe, and has even surpassed countries such as Libya and Malaysia in the jail ratings, according to latest figures.

139 out of every 100,000 people are in jail in Britain, compared to 127 per 100,000 in Libya and 121 per 100,000 in Malaysia, says the report released last week by the British Home Office. It also puts Britain ahead of the previous title holder for western Europe, Portugal for the first time.

“The report estimates that the world prison population is currently made up of 8.75 million people – almost half of these are in the U.S. (1.96 million), China (1.4 million) and Russia (900,000).”

Although Britain does not match such high worldwide rates, it beats all of its European counterparts, including France, which jails 85 people out of every 100,000, Germany (96) and Spain (126).

Officials believe that the increase is due to a combination of rhetoric and legislation aimed at convincing British voters that the government is cracking down on crime. As a result of this, the average sentence length for adults increased by five months to 26 last year.

Harry Fletcher, of the British probation officers union, said he was extremely disappointed that Britain was the jail capital of western Europe and stressed the urgent need for ministers to promote community penalties for less serious offenders.

But Pierre Victor Tournier, an expert consultant to the Council of Europe ‘s Council for Penological Cooperation, says that longer sentences are a widespread problem that exists, not only in Britain, but throughout the rest of Europe.

“The most frequent cause of prison population growth is due to an increase in lengths of imprisonment, with stagnant or, in most cases, decreasing entry flows. This is mainly the case in Belgium, Cyprus, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway and Portugal,” he said.

Tournier also quotes overcrowding as an increasing problem for prisons across Europe and says that almost half of the EU’s 15-member states have overcrowded prisons. He says that approximately 90 percent of Portugal’s prisons are overcrowded, followed by Italy with 85 percent. France is not far behind with 65 percent.

Although the prison population in Portugal fell to 13,384 last year compared to 14,598 in 1998, the prison population there remains 21.6 percent above what it should be. Portuguese prisons are built to accommodate some 11,000 persons.

João Figueiredo, is the general director of the Prison Administration Service in Portugal and president of the Permanent European Conference on Probation and Aftercare, which works to promote the social inclusion of offenders through community work.

He says that Portugal has been able to reduce the number of prisoners over the past couple of years through a series of community-based programmes which prevents convicted criminals from re-offending.

“We strongly believe that social exclusion of offenders through incarceration often reduces the chances of their effective re-integration and increases the risk of their re-offending. We are aiming to reduce Portugal’s prison population through this method,” he said.

Although the country has worked to reduce imprisonment rates, in recent years the country’s prison system has come under fire for conditions and treatment inside the jails. Last year President Jorge Sampaio described the situation in Portuguese prisons as a “real national scandal”.

Last year, the human rights group Amnesty International (AI) published a report covering events in 2001 and indicated that there were new reports of ill-treatment and excessive use of force by law enforcement officers and prison guards.

Last week’s British Home Office report cites Denmark as the country with the lowest incarceration rate in the EU. Just 59 people out of every 100,000 are jailed for the crimes they commit.

A spokesperson for the Danish Prison and Probation Service said this is because the justice system in Denmark tries to deal with criminals in the most humanitarian way possible and looks for alternative means of punishment.

“Throwing people straight in jail isn’t always the answer,” he said.

But in spite of positive reports and favourable statistics, Denmark was criticized earlier this month by AI for its treatment of Greenland’s prisoners who are forced to serve their term on mainland Denmark, thousands of miles from the native land.

Stig Nielsen, a spokesperson for AI, said: “These people have an extra punishment on top of their sentence. They ought to be sent back to their homeland, not 4,000 kilometres away.”

But Stephanos Stavros, Head of the Penology and Criminology Division in the Council of Europe, is hopeful that Europe’s prisons will be less crowded in the future and said that member states are currently seeking new ways to deal with crime.

“Most member States are introducing non-custodial sanctions and measures, making for a more creative approach to the problem of crime and punishment. Involvement of the local community is a vital, ground-breaking factor in implementing these measures,” he said.

“The Council of Europe is working with member and applicant states to develop these measures, which undoubtedly contribute to the building of a more caring Europe, and its co-operation activities to strengthen the Rule of Law,” Stavros pointed out.

Excerpt: