The Council of Europe's newly released 2025 annual penal statistics on prison populations (SPACE I) , show that many European countries are failing to address the serious prison overcrowding they face. In many others prisons are close to full capacity following an increase in their prison populations in recent years. At the same time, the survey indicates that the proportion of older detainees is increasing, which may create operational and policy challenges to prison systems in the future, and there is a slight increase in the proportion of women in prison.
Overall, in Europe, the number of inmates per 100 places available increased from 94.7 to 95.2 from 31 January 2024 to 31 January 2025, with significant differences across countries. In countries with over 500,000 inhabitants, 14 prison systems reported having more inmates than available places. The number of prison systems which reported severe overcrowding grew from six in January 2024 to nine in January 2025: Türkiye and France (both with 131 inmates per 100 places), Croatia (123), Italy (121), Malta (118), Cyprus (117), Hungary (115), Belgium (114) and Ireland (112).
Five prison administrations reported moderate overcrowding: Finland (110), Greece (108), Scotland (United Kingdom) (106), North Macedonia (104) and Sweden (103). In addition, nine prison systems operated at or near full capacity: Romania (100), Portugal (99), Azerbaijan (98), England and Wales (UK) (96), Serbia (96), Czechia (95), Netherlands (95), Denmark (95) and Switzerland (95).
Europe's prison population over 1.1 million
As of 31 January 2025, there were 1,107,921 individuals held in custody in the 51 prison systems of Council of Europe member states, representing a median imprisonment rate of 110 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants across the continent. Considering prison systems from countries with a population exceeding 1 million inhabitants that submitted data for both 2024 and 2025, the median European imprisonment rate remained stable (115 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants).
However, 13 prison systems experienced a significant increase in their imprisonment rates from January 2024 to January 2025: Türkiye (+29%), Montenegro (+22%), Luxembourg (+20%), Sweden (+15%), Greece (+14%), Croatia (+11%), Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (+8.2%), Latvia (+8%), Finland (+7.2%), France (+6.6%), Catalonia (Spain) (+6.4%), Armenia (+5.8%) and Hungary (+5.3%). Incarceration rates only fell substantially in five countries: Ukraine (-18%), Slovakia (-16%), Georgia (-11%), Estonia (-9.8%) and Poland (-6%).
The countries with the highest imprisonment rates were Türkiye (458 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants), Azerbaijan (271), Republic of Moldova (245), Georgia (232), Hungary (206), Montenegro (200), Albania (192) Poland (189), Latvia (189), Czechia (178), Serbia (174), Lithuania (154) and Slovakia (151). Other prison systems with high incarceration rates included Scotland (United Kingdom) (148), North Macedonia (146) and England and Wales (United Kingdom) (141).
Overall, in Europe, one in four prisoners was in pre-trial detention in January 2025. Pre-trial detention, which often has a strong impact on prison density, does not follow a clear regional trend. The prison systems with the highest proportions were Albania (62%), Montenegro (53%), Armenia (52%), Switzerland (49%) and the Netherlands (45%). On the other hand, Bulgaria (7%), Czechia (8.2%), Poland (11%), Romania (12%), Slovakia and Lithuania (both 13%) registered particularly low proportions.
Foreign nationals vary as proportion of inmates
Foreign nationals represented a substantial share of the prison population in some prison systems and a very small proportion in others, for several reasons, including migration flows, legal frameworks, and geopolitical factors. Overall, in Europe, 17% of inmates were non-citizens. The fact that the average proportion of European Union nationals among foreign inmates was 27% reflects European mobility and the EU's framework of freedom of movement, which allows citizens to live and work across member states.
Prison systems with particularly high proportions of foreign nationals included Luxembourg (78%), Switzerland (73%), Cyprus (54%), Austria (53%), Slovenia (52%), Catalonia (Spain) (52%), Greece (52%), Malta (51%), Germany (47%) and Belgium (43%), in countries with over 500,000 inhabitants. The lowest proportions were to be found in Romania (1.1%), Republic of Moldova (1.9%) and Azerbaijan (2.2%).
The challenge of the ageing prison population
The average age of inmates in European penal institutions was 39 years old, with significant variations across countries. Italy and Portugal reported the oldest average age (42), followed by Montenegro, Estonia and Serbia (41). The youngest average prison populations were found in the Republic of Moldova (30), Sweden (34) and France, Cyprus and Denmark (35).
The survey signals a growing presence of elderly individuals in prison, from 2.5% in January 2020 to 2.9% in 2025. Although the overall proportion of elderly inmates remains modest, the survey notes the implications for prison management this may have in the future, considering the often-complex needs of older prisoners as regards health needs, chronic illnesses, cognitive decline and reduced mobility.
The survey emphasises the high proportions of inmates aged 65 or over in some countries: Croatia stands out with 10.8%, followed by Serbia (7.2%), Slovenia (5.7%), Bulgaria (5.2%) and Italy (5.1%), while Slovakia (28%), Italy (24%), North Macedonia (22%), Portugal (21%) and Spain (State administration) (20%) register the highest proportions of prisoners aged 50 to 64.
Women in prison
The proportion of women in the prison population rose from 4.8% to 5.2% between January 2024 and January 2025, an 8.9% increase overall in countries with populations over one million inhabitants, which could reflect a shift in sentencing practices, offence patterns and the use of alternatives to imprisonment. The highest proportions of women were found in Hungary (8.8%), Czechia (8.6%), Malta (8%) and Sweden (7.9%), in countries with over 500,000 inhabitants. In contrast, the lowest shares of women prisoners were observed in Albania (1.6%), Armenia (2.6%), Montenegro (2.8%) and Azerbaijan (3.1%).
Offences
Drug offences continued to be the most common crimes for which individuals were serving prison sentences (17.3%), followed by theft (12.1%). Around one out of every three sentenced prisoners was serving sentences for violent crimes, including homicide (or attempt) (10.9%), rape or other sexual offences (8.6%), assault (6.3%) and robbery (6.1%). Overall, 2.7% of prisoners had been convicted of road-traffic offences, and the same proportion of inmates had been convicted of economic or financial crimes.
