Law in Charts · Courts, police and prisons
How full are the prisons?
How many people are held in prison for every 100 places the official capacity provides?
persons held per 100 places of official capacity
- Liechtenstein350 2024
- Cyprus228 2024
- Slovenia134 2024
- France129 2024
- Türkiye127 2024
- Croatia123 2024
- Italy122 2024
- Romania118 2024
- Austria117 2024
- Belgium114 2024
- Ireland112 2024
- Sweden112 2024
- Finland107 2024
- Greece107 2024
- Hungary103 2024
- Bosnia and Herzegovina102 2024
- Denmark101 2024
- Portugal99 2024
- Serbia96 2024
- Czechia95 2024
- Netherlands95 2024
- Norway93 2024
- Switzerland91 2024
- North Macedonia88 2023
- Malta86 2024
Source: Eurostat, Prison capacity and number of persons held (crim_pris_cap). Data for 2020 to 2024. What it counts, how to cite it and the data
At a glance
- 38 countries or territories have a figure.
- The highest is Liechtenstein at 350 (2024) and the lowest is Estonia at 50 (2024).
- The middle value (the median) is 95.
What it counts
The actual number of persons held in prison divided by the official prison capacity, times 100, for the latest year in which a country reports both.
What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison
Countries define official capacity in different ways (some count by cell, some by floor space), a very small system can show an extreme figure, and over 100 does not always mean overcrowding in the legal sense. Not every country reports both numbers.
Source
Eurostat: Prison capacity and number of persons held (crim_pris_cap). Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.
Cite this chart
Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.
Reference (APA style)
TheLawToKnow. (2026). How full are the prisons? [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/prison-occupancy. Data: Eurostat, Prison capacity and number of persons held (crim_pris_cap), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/crim_pris_cap/default/table (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).
Short credit for slides and websites
Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/prison-occupancy). Data: Eurostat.
BibTeX
@misc{prisonoccupancy2026,
author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
title = {How full are the prisons?},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {Law in Charts},
url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/prison-occupancy},
note = {Data: Eurostat, Prison capacity and number of persons held (crim_pris_cap), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/crim_pris_cap/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}Embed this chart on your own page
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Learn more
- Course: Criminal Procedure
More in Courts, police and prisons
- Professional judges per 100,000 inhabitants
- Police officers per 100,000 inhabitants
- People in prison per 100,000 inhabitants
- People in prison per 100,000 inhabitants, over time
- Women among professional judges
- Women among police officers
- What governments spend on law courts, per inhabitant
- What governments spend on law courts, as a share of GDP
- What governments spend on police services, per inhabitant
- What governments spend on police services, as a share of GDP
- What governments spend on prisons, per inhabitant
- What governments spend on prisons, as a share of GDP
- What governments spend on public order and safety, per inhabitant
- What governments spend on public order and safety, as a share of GDP
- Prison staff per 100,000 inhabitants
- Women among prison staff
- Foreign nationals among people in prison
- Women among people in prison
- Juveniles among people in prison
General information, not legal advice. All charts.