Punishments

In the 21st century, the share of long-term prisoners increased while the share of those serving terms of less than one year decreased. Prisoners serving a term of less than three months accounted for 6 per cent of the total prison population in 2017. Over a fourth of the prisoners were in prison for one to two years. Roughly 10 per cent of all prisoners were looking to serve terms of eight years or more.

The share of first-time offenders rose from 30 to 38 per cent in the past ten years. Just under a third of the prisoners were serving their third to seventh sentence in 2017. Nearly every fifth prisoner was in prison for the eighth time or more.

The figures are taken from the Statistical Yearbook of the Criminal Sanctions Agency. The link to the online version is at the bottom of this page.

Figure: Calculated length of time served in prison by sentenced prisoners on 1 may 2008 and 2017

Community sanctions

In 2017, the average daily number of community sanction clients was 2 967.

The daily average of conditionally sentenced young offenders under supervision was 727. The number dropped throughout the past decade.

The already low number of juvenile punishments stayed the same. In 2017, the average daily number of clients serving juvenile punishment was seven in the whole country.

An average of 1 093 parolees were subject to supervision daily in 2017.

The community service clients averaged 1 096, which was 35 per cent less than ten years ago.

Figure: Average daily number of community sanction clients in 2008 - 2017

More statistics: See the Statistics of the Criminal Sanctions Agency -yearbook