Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures - Oapen

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Prison Population
• Entry following a transfer from one penal institution to another in the same
country
• Entry following the detainee’s removal from the institution in order to appear
before a judicial authority (i.e. investigating judge, court)
• Entry following a prison leave or a period of absence by permission
• Entry following an escape, after re-arrest by the police
When these movements are counted as entries, the total flow is artificially inflated.
The consequences of such a way of counting entries into prison are quite important.
On the one hand, one could have the impression that the country has a
high rate of incarceration when that is not the case. On the other hand, as the
flow is regularly combined with the stock in order to calculate an estimate of the
length of the stay in prison, a high number of entries will produce a length of the
stay in prison that is lower than the real figure. Thus, one could have the impression
that the country applies short prison sentences when in fact that is not the
case.
3.7 Flow: Subcategories
Most countries can indicate the number of pre-trial detainees among the total flow.
The same is true for females and minors. However, as far as minors are concerned, it
must be kept in mind that in some countries they are not included in penal statistics.
On the other hand, few of them can provide a breakdown for foreigners among
the total flow, and almost none can indicate how many of these detainees were
EU citizens and how many were not.
3.8 Stock: Convicted prison population by offence
Most countries can provide a breakdown of the prison population by offence (as
requested in table 4.2 of the final questionnaire). In particular, it is possible to
obtain figures of persons sentenced for serious offences such as homicide, rape,
robbery, theft, drug offences, fraud, as well as for traffic offences. For other offences
such as theft of a motor vehicle, burglary, domestic burglary, offences
against computer data and systems, money laundering and corruption as well as
drug trafficking, figures are seldom available.
The main problem in this context is that quite often a person is sentenced for
more than one offence. As a consequence, some countries include double countings
(i.e. the person is counted once for each offence) when giving the breakdown
of prisoners by offence. In order to solve this problem, a principal offence rule
must be applied (i.e. the person is counted only for the most serious offence).
Most countries do so, although it is not clear if the classification of offences by
seriousness is the same in different countries.