CoE Report: Reduced overcrowding in Serbia’s prisons

The rate of overcrowding in Serbia’s institutes for the enforcement of criminal sanctions has reduced, according to the Council of Europe (CoE) report for 2018. In 2017, Serbia had 109.2 persons deprived of liberty to 100 places available. In 2018, the rate dropped to 105.5. An influencing factor was the opening of a new modern prison in Pančevo in October 2018, with a holding capacity of 500 persons.

The CoE report states that, compared to Serbia, member states of the CoE and of the European Union (EU) face greater problems with higher rates of overcrowding, such as Belgium (with a 120.6:100 ratio), Italy (118.9:100), France (116.5:100), Hungary (114.5:100), Romania (113.1:100), Malta (107:100), Greece (106.8:100), and Austria by a small margin (105.8). The number of deaths has practically remained the same – 56 in 2018 compared to 55 in 2017 –, and there were no cases of suicide in 2018.   

This data pertains to the CoE Report for Serbia for the year 2018, through and including 31 December 2018, and not the year 2019 contrary to some media reports. Similarly, there were also no 43 escapes in 2018, as some have reported. Rather, only one escape took place during prisoner escorting, and there were 42 recorded absences from open or semi-open prison wards which, under the law, cannot have physical and technical barriers. Escapes, by definition, only refer to closed areas of a prison with such barriers.

For the past several years, the Ministry of Justice and its Penal Sanctions Enforcement Administration have been focusing intensive efforts towards improving the housing conditions for persons deprived of liberty. Most recently, the construction of a new modern facility, with the capacity to hold 200 prisoners of the District Prison in Leskovac, was completed. Then last year, a facility for 160 women prisoners of the Penal Correctional Institution (PCI) for Women in Požarevac was constructed, as was a new pavilion for 216 convicts of the PCI Požarevac−Zabela for which two more pavilions are presently being built. Finally, a new pavilion for the PCI in Sremska Mitrovica, with the capacity to hold 320 prisoners, is to be constructed by the end of 2020.           

In all its efforts, the Penal Sanctions Enforcement Administration remains committed to respecting the rights of persons deprived of liberty, and to the full application of international treaties regulating this area, equally in terms of prison holding capacity and humane treatment of convicts and detainees.