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Law in Charts · Courts, police and prisons

Women among prison staff

What share of the staff of adult prisons are women in each European country?

35 of 35 shown in the list

% of prison staff who are women

  1. Estonia57.3% 2023
  2. Sweden48.9% 2024
  3. Lithuania48.3% 2024
  4. Norway45.9% 2019
  5. Denmark42.9% 2024
  6. Hungary40.8% 2024
  7. France39.9% 2024
  8. Spain39.8% 2024
  9. Finland37.0% 2024
  10. Latvia36.3% 2024
  11. Netherlands35.7% 2024
  12. Austria34.2% 2024
  13. Slovenia32.3% 2024
  14. Germany30.1% 2022
  15. Luxembourg30.1% 2024
  16. Serbia29.8% 2024
  17. Croatia29.6% 2024
  18. Czechia29.6% 2024
  19. Portugal28.6% 2024
  20. Iceland27.4% 2022
  21. Poland26.9% 2024
  22. Romania26.6% 2024
  23. Montenegro26.1% 2024
  24. Slovakia25.3% 2024
  25. Malta23.5% 2024

Source: Eurostat, Personnel in the criminal justice system by sex (crim_just_job). Data for 2019 to 2024. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 35 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Estonia at 57.3% (2023) and the lowest is Liechtenstein at 6.3% (2020).
  • The middle value (the median) is 29.6%.

What it counts

The number of women among personnel in adult prisons divided by all such personnel, in the latest year each country reports (since 2019).

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

Countries differ in who counts as prison staff, and many prisons staff men's and women's wings differently. The share says nothing about rank or about the role women hold. Eurostat marks Kosovo with an asterisk: this designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

Source

Eurostat: Personnel in the criminal justice system by sex (crim_just_job). 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). Women among prison staff [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/women-among-prison-staff. Data: Eurostat, Personnel in the criminal justice system by sex (crim_just_job), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/crim_just_job/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/women-among-prison-staff). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{womenamongprisonstaff2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {Women among prison staff},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/women-among-prison-staff},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, Personnel in the criminal justice system by sex (crim_just_job), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/crim_just_job/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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