The overall number of persons subject to sanctions and measures which keep offenders in the community remained stable in Europe from January 2022 to January 2023, although some probation administrations experienced significant increases or decreases, according to the Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics on Persons under the Supervision of Probation Agencies (2023 SPACE II survey), carried out for the Council of Europe by the University of Lausanne. (Please see also the Key Findings “Probation and Prisons in Europe 2023”).

The survey contains data on probationers from 41 probation administrations of Council of Europe member states who are serving different community sanctions or measures, including alternatives to detention such as electronic monitoring, community service, home arrest, treatments, semi-liberty, and conditional release.

On 31 January 2023, there were 1,330,838 persons under the supervision of 30 probation agencies that provided this data and use persons as the counting unit (some administrations use other indicators, such as the number of cases or files), which reflects a 1% increase compared to 31 January 2022. This corresponds to a median probation population of 164 probationers per 100,000 inhabitants.

The probation administrations with the highest probation population rates were Poland (636 probationers per 100,000 inhabitants), Türkiye (434), the Republic of Moldova (320), Latvia (290), England and Wales (UK) (284), France (283), Estonia (249) and Italy (210). The administrations with the lowest rates were North Macedonia (9.7 probationers per 100,000 inhabitants), Greece (17) and Montenegro (27).

Professor Marcelo Aebi, Head of the SPACE research team from the University of Lausanne, said: “The landscape of penal systems across Europe is very diverse. While probation and community sanctions have been expanding as alternatives to imprisonment in the last years, their implementation varies significantly. In 2023, 23 out of 30 jurisdictions had higher probation population rates than prison population rates, reflecting a trend to keep offenders in the community to facilitate their social inclusion. However, in some countries with high prison and probation rates, community sanctions seem not to be always used as substitutive of imprisonment but rather as supplementary measures, while in other countries community sanctions are still seldom used.”