According to data from the Statista.com website, the United States of America has the largest number of prisoners in the world – almost 2.1 million.
The USA is followed by China – 1,710,000 prisoners, Brazil – 759,518, India – 478,600 and the Russian Federation – 475,009. In Serbia, the number of prisoners has been falling but the imprisonment rate is growing.
Since the data are from July this year, it is possible that the figures differ, but only slightly. According to the same site, the issue of the number of people in prisons in the US has become controversial, among other things, because the prison system is capitalised by companies that finance prisons, in addition to the fact that taxpayers pay large sums for each prisoner.
As for Europe, the Council of Europe’s annual statistics on the situation in European prisons for 2021 show that the countries with the largest prison population are Russia with 478,714 prisoners, Turkey with 272,115 and Great Britain with 87,035 prisoners.
In Serbia, the total number of prisoners decreased from 11,077 to 10,540, but there was a slight increase in the imprisonment rate (number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants) of 1.5 per cent compared to 2020.
(Danas, 11.10.2022)
Photo credits: Beta/Miloš Miškov