Georgia has lowest pre-trial detention rate in region

Georgia is among European countries with the lowest proportion of prisoners in remand.

The Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee published its annual report today in which one of the key themes was remand (pre-trial) detention.

According to the latest prison statistics of the Council of Europe, in 2015 in Georgia the share of remand prisoners in total number of prisoners was 13.8 percent; density of remand prisoners per 100 capacity (available places) was 47.9 persons, as compared to average indicators of 25.4 percent and 93.7 persons.

Georgia registered better results than most European states but the report shows that, on average, remand prisoners amount to one in every four inmates held in European penal institutions.

• The full report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) can be found here.

 The CPT urged the 47 Council of Europe member states to use remand detention only as a measure of last resort and to provide remand prisoners with adequate detention conditions.

The report said that during visits to prisons throughout Europe, the CPT has often found that remand prisoners are held under very poor conditions and on an impoverished regime.

It added that in many European countries the persistent problem of overcrowding in prisons is due to a large extent to the high proportion of remand prisons among the total prison population.

"The CPT has regularly identified serious shortcomings in the conditions in which pre-trial prisoners are held in Europe. I call on states to ensure that their conditions of detention are in line with human rights standards and that pre-trial detention is only applied if absolutely necessary, which can help to reduce prison overcrowding”, said the Council of Europe´s Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland.

Read today's annual report from #CoE anti torture experts.https://t.co/1qP8gkoSHX#Videohttps://t.co/be8zS7Cek4pic.twitter.com/g8a69J5Y3Y

— Council of Europe (@coe) April 20, 2017

The report also showed that the prison administrations with the highest proportion of remand prisoners are Albania (49.2 percent), the Netherlands (43.4 percent), Moldova (41.8 percent), Switzerland (39.6 percent), Denmark (36.3 percent) and Italy (34 percent).

The prison administrations with the lowest proportion of remand prisoners are Romania (8.4 percent), Bulgaria (8.6 percent), the Czech Republic (9.4 percent), Bosnia and Herzegovina (9.9 percent), Macedonia (10.4 percent), Lithuania (12.4 percent) and Spain (12.5 percent).

Remand prisoners include: untried detainees (no court decision has been reached yet), detainees found guilty but who have not yet received a sentence, sentenced prisoners who have appealed or who are within the statutory limit for doing so and detainees who have not received a final sentence yet but who have started serving a prison sentence in advance.