CoE: Hungary’s prisons most overcrowded in Europe

Brussels, March 8 (MTI) – Prisons in Hungary were found the most overcrowded in a European comparison in recent years, according to a Council of Europe report published on Tuesday.

The report noted a slight improvement across the surveyed countries, and said that the average European prison was 99 percent occupied in 2011, while that ratio went down to 94 percent by 2014.

At the time of conducting the survey, Hungary had 18,270 detainees, while the country’s total prison capacity was 12,869, putting the occupancy rate at 142 percent, the report said. Hungary was followed by Belgium with 129 percent, and Macedonia with 123 percent. Prisons in over one quarter of the 47 European countries surveyed were overcrowded, the report said.

On the other hand, the situation was the best in San Marino, Monaco, and Andorra, with only two thirds of their prisons occupied, the survey found.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters