Prisons in Estonia

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The prisons in Estonia are operated by the Estonian Department of Prisons, which currently maintains three prisons around the country: Tallinn Prison, Tartu Prison and Viru Prison. [1]

Contents

History

Prisons were used more frequently under the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, and people were held for longer periods of times. This use did not immediately fall after Estonia's independence, as it took time to reform policing and the criminal code, and crime rates grew in the meantime. Prisons were managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs until August 1993, when they were transferred to the Ministry of Justice. A program began in 1996 to replace old Soviet prison buildings with new ones. Probation and parole were established in 1997 with the Probation Act. Tartu prison opened in 2002. [2]

Population

In March 2011, there were 3,405 persons incarcerated in Estonia, and the number of prisoners per 100,000 residents were 254, which is the third highest rate in the EU. These figures include pre-trial detainees and remand prisoners. [3] [4] It is, however, a much lower rate than in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the Estonian prison population reached almost 5,000 persons. [3]

Estonian prisoners and prison population per 100,000 inhabitants [5]
YearPrisonersPrison population
per 100,000 inhabitants
19924778312
19934514302
19944518309
19954401306
19964228301
19974752341
19984342315
19994679341
20004803351
20014775350
20024352321
20034575339
20044565339
20054410328
20064310321
20073466258
20083656273
20093555265
2010 [6] 3393254
20113400255
20123286248

References

  1. ↑ Intitutions
  2. ↑ Miljan, Toivo (2015). "Prisons". Historical Dictionary of Estonia (2nd ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 364–365. ISBN   978-0-8108-7513-5.
  3. 1 2 International Centre for Prison Studies: Estonia Archived 2012-03-22 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2011-07-29
  4. ↑ International Centre for Prison Studies: Europe - Prison Population Rates per 100,000 Retrieved 2011-07-29
  5. ↑ (from the estonian prisons official webpage).
  6. ↑ Prison_population 2002-2012 ec.europa.eu
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