Azerbaijan is among the top three in Europe in terms of the number of convicts

Prison overcrowding remains an acute problem for many European prison systems, according to the Council of Europe's Annual Report on Prisons (SPACE I) for 2023. According to the Council of Europe, the number of prisoners per 100 places in Europe increased by 2% in the period from January 31, 2022 to January 31, 2023 (from 91.7 to 93.5 prisoners). Seven prison administrations reported holding more than 105 prisoners per 100 available places, indicating severe overcrowding.

In Azerbaijan, this figure is 96 prisoners per 100 places. From January 2022 to January 2023, the largest increase in prisoners was observed in Moldova (+52%), Northern Macedonia (+26%), Cyprus (+25%), Turkey (+15%), Azerbaijan (+13%), Ireland (+12%), Montenegro (+11%), Armenia (+11%), Croatia (+10%). The prison rate decreased significantly only in Malta (-22%), Lithuania (-8.9%), Estonia (-8.8%) and Greece (-5.2%).

The countries with the highest incarceration rate were: Turkiye (408 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants), Georgia (256), Azerbaijan (244), etc.

Drug-related crimes are the most common (19% of those convicted), followed by murders and attempted murders (13%), theft (12%), sexual crimes (8.9%), robberies (7.7%), as well as assaults and beatings (6.7%). At the same time, Azerbaijan is among the countries with a low percentage of female prisoners. (2.9%), there are fewer of them in Albania (1.3%), Croatia (1.9%) and Armenia (2.6%).

Azerbaijan is also among the countries with a low percentage of foreign prisoners - 1.9%, only Romania (1.1%) and Moldova (1.5%) have fewer of them.