STA, 4 December 2018 - Slovenia has very crowded prisons, but a very short average length of imprisonment in comparison with all 47 Council of Europe (CoE) and 28 EU members, follows from CoE's report on prisons for 2005-2015, released on Tuesday.
Labelled high, prison density in 2015 reached 105.8 persons per 100 available places in prisons, however, the number of available places also rose, from 1,103 to 1,322, or by 20%.
Another indicator rated as high in comparison with the data for all CoE and EU members is the rate of deaths per 10,000 inmates, which reached 39.4 in 2014.
Fewer than 1,400 people behind bars
Meanwhile, Slovenian prisons did very well in terms of prison population, which despite increasing by 19% from 1,132 to 1,399, remains low.
There were 57 prisoners per 100,000 residents in Slovenia in 2005, but the figure rose to 68 in a decade.
Another low segment is the period prisoners spent behind bars, which dropped by 15% from an average 6.2 months in 2005 to 5.3 months in 2014.
Suicide rate was also low in comparison with the other countries, with no suicide committed in 2014, but 12.3 per 100,000 inmates in the decade.
The report labels as medium most of the other parameters in comparison with all CoE and EU members.
Interestingly though, the number of female prisoners in Slovenia increased and the number of foreigners serving time in the country decreased.
More women, fewer foreigners
The number of women prisoners increased by 37%, with their shares representing 4.2% of all prisoners in 2005 and 5.8% in 2015.
The number of foreign nationals imprisoned in Slovenia fell from 144 in 2005 to 131 in 2015, which represented 12.7% and 9.4% of the prison population, respectively.
The number of prison guards, or custodial staff, also increased, from 451 to 506, and they accounted for almost 61% of all staff working in Slovenian prisons.
The average age of the prison population three years ago was 35, and an average daily cost an inmate was to the national budget stood at slightly over 70 euro a day, a figure calculated as the 2008-2014 average.
The report Prisons in Europe 2005-2015 also says that in 2009-2014, the number of releases from prison in Slovenia dropped by 8%, from 178 per 100,000 residents to 163.
The percentages of prisoners serving sentences for robbery and drug offences increased, while the percentages of those serving time for homicide, assault and battery, sexual offences, theft, and other types of offences decreased.
The full report is available at http://wp.unil.ch/space/files/2018/12/Slovenia.pdf
