ArmInfo.In 2020, the lowest number of prisoners in penitentiaryl institutions per 100 thousand inhabitants was registered in Armenia. The Minister of Justice of Armenia Rustam Badasyan announced this on his Facebook page, referring to the data of the annual crime statistics of the Council of Europe.
According to the minister, in comparison with other European countries, a decrease in the level of imprisonment was registered in Armenia again. In particular, as of January 31, 2018, there were 3,536 people in penitentiary institutions in Armenia, in 2019 - 2,266, in 2020 - 2,221 people. At the same time, in the context of the last 10 years, a decrease in the number of prisoners by 50.4% was registered in Armenia, which is the second best result in the comparative table. In this vein, he noted that in this way, according to this indicator, Armenia is comparable to such countries as Germany, Denmark, Slovenia and Sweden.
In addition, according to Badasyan, in 2020 the number of women prisoners in Armenia amounted to only 3.1% of the total, which is again lower than the European average.
Another positive factor is that in terms of the density of prisoners, Armenia ranks among the countries with the lowest indicator - 41.5%, which is almost 2 times lower than the European average. At the same time, the Minister of Justice did not rule out that in the statistics of next year Armenia will again register progress on some indicators.