Armenia has lower incarceration rate than host of EU, CIS countries

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia took the 82nd spot among 171 countries in the report States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2016, published on June 16 by the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that produces research to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization.

This report reveals the incarceration rate (number of incarcerated people) per 100,000 in all countries with at least a half million in total population.

Armenia thus has an incarceration rate of 130.

For the incarceration rates of countries, the report used the most recent data available from the Institute for Criminal Policy Research’s World Prison Brief, published on June 9, 2016.

The United States tops the rankings, with 693 people per 100,000 incarcerated in state prisons, local jails, and federal prisons. The U.S. state of Louisiana, in particular, has been called “the world’s prison capital.” According to Times-Picayune reporter Cindy Chang, “the state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world.”

Nearly all of the countries with relatively high incarceration rates share the experience of recent large-scale internal conflict, the report says. But the United States, which has enjoyed a long history of political stability and hasn’t had a civil war in over a century and a half, comes to top the list.

The North American country is followed by Turkmenistan with an incarceration rate of 583, El Salvador (517), Cuba (510), Thailand (472), and Russia (453).

With an incarceration rate of 238, Turkey ranks the 30th, Georgia (262) takes the 24th spot, while Iran (287) and Azerbaijan (236) come in the 17th and 31st, respectively.

Within the CIS countries, Tajikistan is the only country to have a smaller number of incarcerated people (121) per 100,000 than Armenia, with several EU countries, including Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Switzerland also having registered higher incarceration rates than Armenia.

The report showed that the Central African Republic (16), Comoros (19), Republic of Guinea (26), Congo - Brazzaville (27), the Democratic Republic of Congo (29) incarcerate the smallest portion of their own citizens.