Romania’s law makers would like to implement a new measure to solve the country’s overcrowded jails problem.

The Parliament will analyze the idea of offering clemency to criminals who have been sentenced to jail for white collar crimes such as tax evasion and money laundering, if they “truly regret” their crimes, according to a law draft, writes local Profit.ro.

This new term would be introduced in the Criminal Code, and would save from jail terms only those white collar criminals who break the law for the first time and who also denounce it. They also have to compensate for the damages and actively contribute in helping the Police understand the system behind the crime.

The new solution of “truly regretting” a crime will not be applicable to crimes such as robbery, rape, piracy, recruiting minors, crimes against public safety and national security, or against public health, nor to selling and using drugs and pornography.

Romania has been seeing record number of criminal cases in recent years: one in 3 adults show up in court and one in 4 Romanians are involved in criminal cases.

Some 28,300 convicts were serving jail sentences in Romanian prisons at the end of 2015, down from over 33,400 at end-2013. Over 40% of the inmates were convicted for crimes against patrimony, which include petty theft as well as white collar crimes.

Romania’s prisons have the capacity to accommodate only about 20,000 inmates, according to international standards that require 4 sqm for each inmate. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently ruled that Romania should pay compensations to several inmates for keeping them in overcrowded jail cells.

How many people are incarcerated in Romania’s prisons and why are they in there?

editor@romania-insider.com