The Council of Europe’s Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations for 2020, showed that, as of 31 January 2020, there were 8,056 inmates and 7,725 prison spaces in Scotland – or 104.3 inmates per 100 places. This compares to a median figure of 90.3 amongst all member states.

Fourteen prisons administration reported prison density of more than 100 inmates per 100 places – an indicator of overcrowding – one administration less than in 2019. Overall overcrowding was most serious - on 31 January - in Turkey (127 inmates per 100 available places), Italy (120), Belgium (117), Cyprus (116), France (116), Hungary (113) Romania (113), Greece (109), Slovenia (109) and Serbia (107).

The overall European imprisonment rate – the number of persons in prison per 100,000 inhabitants – fell again slightly in 2020, consolidating a trend that started in 2013.

In Scotland, the prison population rate stood high above the European median of 103.2. It declined by 2.5 per cent between 2010 and 2020. The rate per 100,000 people was 150.4 in 2010 and fell to 146.6 in 2020.

Since 2013, when it peaked at 131 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants, this rate has fallen every year, reaching an overall decline of 20 per cent.

According to Professor Marcelo Aebi, head of the SPACE research team from the University of Lausanne, this reduction partly reflects the decrease of traditional offences like theft and robbery over that period, which has not been compensated by the increase of cyber-related offences, namely cyber-frauds. Cybercrimes lead to less convictions because the perpetrators are often based outside the national territory and are difficult to trace and sanction.

The countries with the highest incarceration rates in January 2020 were Turkey (357 inmates per 100,000 inhabitants), Russia (356), Georgia (264), Lithuania (220) Azerbaijan (209), Czech Republic (197), Poland (195), Slovak Republic (193) and Estonia (184). Not taking into account countries with less than 300,000 inhabitants, the lowest incarceration rates were found in Iceland (45), Finland (50), Netherlands (59) and Norway (59).

Drug-related offences continued to be the reason for which prisoners had been convicted most often in the 42 prison administrations that provided this data (close to 260,000 inmates representing 17.7 per cent of the total prison population), followed by theft (199,000 inmates, 13 per cent) and homicide – including attempts -(169,000, 12 per cent). Four of every 10 inmates had been convicted for offences involving violence (homicide, assault and battery, rape and other sexual offences, and robbery).

Scotland did not supply the CoE with any drug offence data.