Romania is the European country with most citizens in EU prisons, according to statistics drawn up by an international team of journalists, which have collected data from 25 countries.

Morocco tops the overall ranking with 11,706 prisoners in EU prisons, followed by Romania with 11,511, Albania – 5,722, Turkey – 4,798, and Poland 4,449, reports Theblacksea.eu.

The figures are from 2015 (France 2014), and represent an estimate of the real number, because many countries have different reporting strategies.

However, there are some 2.9 million Romanians living outside of their countries of origin in the EU, which means that only 1 in 256 Romanian expats are in jail. Romanians are mostly convicted for petty crime, such as shoplifting, burglary, and mugging, the statistics also show.

According to the Council of Europe, the average amount spent per day on a European prisoner is EUR 99. Thus, the cost with Romanian prisoners in EU jails is around EUR 400 million per year.

When looking at the number of criminals as percentage of the countries’ expat population, Romania is no longer first in the ranking. Lithuania comes first with a share of 0.59%, followed by Latvia and Romania with 0.39% each.

The total number of inmates in Romanian prisons was over 28,300 at the end of 2015, 25,000 of whom were serving final sentences and over 3,000 in temporary arrest, according to the annual report of the Prison's Administration. Some 270 of the inmates in Romanian prisons were foreigners, with the highest numbers coming from turkey (46), Bulgaria (32), Moldova (23), and Italy (15).

The prisons in Romania are overcrowded and this has led to sanctions against Romania from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and prison riots.

A four-member delegation of the UN Subcommittee for Prevention of Torture (SPT) was in Romania in May, when it visited various places of deprivation of liberty including prisons, pre-trial detention, and police centers. After the visit, the UN experts said that Romania has made progress in improving conditions of detention, but the country still needs to reduce overcrowding in prisons and other places where people are deprived of their liberty.

Romania must pay EUR 100,000 to 18 inmates because of overcrowded prisons

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com