Gefängniskorridor im Gefängnis Nr. 13 von Chisinau. Der Pfeil zeigt auf die Kamera, in der sich derzeit der Zivilaktivist Pavel Grigorchuk von der Petrenko Group befindet. Anwalt Grigorchuk sagte, dass sein Mandant an Asthma leidet und ähnliche Haftbedingungen zu einer Verschlimmerung der Krankheit führen können.

Moldova is among the countries with the highest rate of prisoners per capita in Europe. This is stated in the annual report of criminal statistics of the Council of Europe, published early this week.

According to the report, there are 215.2 prisoners per 100 people in Moldova. The rate is higher only in Russia (418.3), Georgia (252.2), Azerbaijan (235) and Lithuania (234.9).

Iceland (46.8), Finland (51.1), Holland (54.4), Sweden (56.5), Denmark (63.2), Slovenia (61.1) and Norway (65.4) have the lowest rates (excluding countries with a population of less than 300 thousand people).

The report authors recalled that back in 2017, the average death rate in European prisons accounted for 26.3 per 10 thousand prisoners. The last year rate in Moldova was 55 per 10 thousand, Northern Macedonia – 52.8, Bulgaria – 51.5, Portugal – 51.3, Russia – 51, Lithuania – 50, and Azerbaijan – 46.7.

Moldova is also among the countries, which have significantly increased the prisons‘ budget in 2018, compared with 2017, making an increase of 34.6%. A similar result was achieved by Iceland (+41.7%), Latvia (+30.9%), Montenegro (+22.1%), Slovenia (+17.5%) and Serbia (+17.3%). Spain’s expenditures on prisons dropped by 19.4%, Bulgaria’s by 19.1%, the UK’s by 17.3% and the Netherlands‘ by 13.3%.

The average length of the prison term in Europe was 8.2 months. The list of countries with the highest average prison term duration include Azerbaijan (37.7 months), Portugal (31.1), Romania (24.2), Czech Republic (24), Spain (21.8), Northern Macedonia (20.4), and Moldova (19.9).

The lowest rates are in Cyprus (1.2), Switzerland (1.6), Holland (3.5), Denmark (3.9), Great Britain (4.2), Montenegro (4.6), Croatia (4.7), Ireland (4.9) and Norway (4.9).