Past decade saw drastic increase in Türkiye's prison population, ministry figures show

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The number of arrestees and convicts in Türkiye's penal institutions increased by 11.6 percent to 297,860 in 2021 compared to the previous year, according to the figures released yesterday (October 13) by the General Directorate of Criminal Records and Statistics of the Ministry of Justice.

Türkiye's prison population was 136,638 in 2012, which means it increased by 118 percent in nine years.

The figures also indicate overcrowding in prisons, as the prison capacity of the country's 386 prisons is 270,068, about 27,000 fewer than the number of prisoners.

Gender

As of December 21, 2021, over 87 percent of the prisoners were convicts, and 12.8 percent were those under arrest pending trial.

The 259,825 convicts had a total of 907,038 criminal records.

Among all prisoners, 96.1 percent were men and 3.9 percent were women.

Some 96 percent, or 285,815, prisoners were citizens of Türkiye, and 12,045 were foreign nationals.

Incarceration rate

The number of people in prison per 100,000 people was 352 in 2021, up from 219 in 2020.

In the last year, 428 of every 100,000 people aged 12 and over were incarcerated.

Types of offenses

Among the prisoners, 24.6 percent were convicted of theft, 8.8 percent were of violation of residence immunity, 7.1 were of wilful injury, 6.4 percent of manufacture or trade of narcotics or stimulants, and 5 percent were of damage to property.

Also, there were 14,301 convicts of child abuse (14,187 men and 114 women), and 5,095 convicts of sexual assault (5,046 men and 49 women).

Imprisonments in 2021

In the last year, 270,001 people were put in prison. They had a total of 450,043 criminal records.

Also, 240,691 people were released from prison. In other words, the prison population increased by about 30,000 in a year.

In the 12-17 age group, 999 people were convicted and put in prison in a year. As of December 31, there were 1,817 children in the country's prisons. Among them, 122 were aged between 12-14, and 1,695 were aged between 15-17. There were 5,143 prisoners over the age of 65.

The age group with the highest number of prisoners was 25-34 with 108,855 people.

Number of prisons

The number of prisons in the country was 382 in 2016. It rose to 386 in 2017, and to 389 in 2018. In 2019, it decreased to 362 before rising to 270 in 2020. As for the end of last year, there were 384 prisons in the country.

The bed capacity of prisons increased from 202,675 people in 2016 to 270,068 in 2021. In the same period, the number of personnel increased from 48,764 to 66,691. The Penitentiary institution population per personnel also increased from 4.1 to 4.5 percent. (HA/VK)