Turkey remained Europe’s most prolific country in 2022, with an incarceration rate of 405 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants, the pan-European human rights organization the Council of Europe revealed on Thursday. The total Turkish criminal population is 348,265.
Turkey’s population rate rose 15% year-on-year, in line with a long-term trend seen since the failed 2016 coup, said Marcelo Aebi, lead researcher for the Council of Europe’s annual report on crime statistics.
“In Turkey many other people are convicted under anti-terrorism laws,” Aebi, a criminologist at the University of Lausanne, told DW.
Ankara blamed the coup on supporters of U. S. -based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gulen.
According to the World Organization Against Torture, imprisonment in Turkey increased by 89. 3% between 2011 and 2021.
The next levels of incarceration were recorded in Georgia (256), Azerbaijan (244), Moldova (242) and Hungary (211). The lowest rates were observed in Finland (52), the Netherlands (52), Norway (55) and Germany (69).
“Countries in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region, in addition to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, have significantly higher criminal population rates compared to their counterparts in Western and Northern Europe,” the Council of Europe report states, a preferred way of writing Turkey.
“At the other end of the spectrum, countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland and the Nordic countries have remarkably low population rates. “
While Russia, once a leader, is no longer in the Council of Europe, Ankara is now far ahead. But Turkey is far from expanding its incarceration rate, as the report covering the 12 months to February 2023 shows.
Moldova saw a spectacular year-on-year growth of 52. 1%, followed by North Macedonia (25. 5%), Cyprus (24. 8%), Turkey (15%) and finally Azerbaijan (12. 5%).
The proportion of the incarcerated population in Europe increases with an average of 2. 4% in the survey carried out on 48 administrations of the 47 signatory countries of the Council of Europe. As of January 31, 2023, the total population amounted to 1,036,680 inmates.
A similar increase was recorded in 2021, as the criminal population began to recover from the COVID pandemic.
As COVID-19 gripped Europe, street crime declined amid restrictions on movement, justice systems were paralyzed and some countries released prisoners to deal with the threat of deadly respiratory illnesses in closed institutions, according to the Council of Europe.
Prior to this, the European population rate also experienced a long era of decline after a peak in 2013.
For Aebi, it’s too early to say whether the most recent surge is a long-term trend or simply a rebound from the pandemic.
“I don’t have a definitive answer to that question, but something is changing,” he said, giving the example of Sweden, where the incarceration rate will rise to 5. 1% in 2022.
“If you go to the press, 10 or 15 years ago they said that Sweden was going to close its prisons [because it had very few inmates],” he said. “Now they have a real challenge with gangs, and that’s the real explanation for why the increase. “
More than a portion of the main crimes for which European prisoners are serving sentences are similar to drugs and violence, Aebi said.
Edited By: Rob Mudge