In Hungary, there were 191 prisoners per 100,000 people in 2021, and this is the highest rate in the European Union, tied with Poland.
Tall compared to what? Hungary and Poland are followed by Slovakia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Estonia, in the latter country there are 165 detainees or incarcerated persons per 100,000 inhabitants, based on data published by Eurostat recently.
The EU average is much more favorable, 104 people. Finland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Germany have the fewest prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.
What's trending? In 2020, Hungary was only in sixth place on the same list. In addition, in 2020-2021, the number of detainees in proportion to the population increased only in Cyprus to a greater extent, but Cyprus is already on the other side of the list, below the EU average.
In other words, in 2020, the proportion of detainees was already very high here, but it continued to increase to a greater extent than elsewhere. For example, the rate also increased in Poland, but to a lesser extent than in Hungary. The percentage of incarcerated people decreased the most in Estonia and Slovenia.
We are not the most crowded. According to the data, the official capacity of Hungarian prisons is essentially the same as the utilization. Prisons are overcrowded in Cyprus, Romania, France, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Croatia and Denmark. The number of detainees in these countries exceeds the officially recognized capacity.Current projection: Minister Gergely Gulyás recently referred to the overcrowding of Hungarian prisons when asked why a government decree allows the release of nearly a thousand foreign human traffickers on the condition that they leave the country. The report of the Helsinki Committee also confirms that in the last 33 years there have not been as many people in prison as there are now.
Broader context: After hundreds of convicts sued the Hungarian state at the European Court of Human Rights in the mid-2010s for inhumane prison conditions, and the court ordered the Hungarian state to pay compensation, the government accelerated its program to expand the number of prisons. At that time, they suddenly planned to build new prisons in eight settlements, but now only one settlement, Csenger, expects construction to actually begin, Hvg.hu wrote in March.
At the same time, the existing prisons were expanded with lightweight container buildings, so that 2,750 beds were previously created in 10 penitentiary institutions.
Featured image: MTI/Károly Árvai
