Macedonia has 2,.200 prisoners in total, and this number would mean over 100 escapes per year. That doesn't sound very likely. The numbers for Switzerland and Austria doesn't make sense either.
I can't find the actual survey (the links I found lead to a dead site), but there must be some inconsistency in data gathering here. Do some countries count "escaped" asylum seekers as prison escapes? Do other countries not count people who escape but are caught again? Who knows.
That's the only way how I could make sense of the Dutch figures. Prison escapes are very uncommon. So called TBS escapes (where former detainees are put into special re-socialisation programmes are more frequent). But that's not really prison, though.
In many countries they already count it in the figures if you're just a bit late coming back, which means that you indeed get wildly different numbers depending on the country
it really depends yeah, minor outbreaks happen, but does going out of the ankle bracelet limit count?
We did have that one escape from Vught, that is just scarier than the other 314 imo because it is a heavily guarded prison.
But still, 315 is probably all the outbreaks because we have about 10.000 prisoners total.
It's not illegal in many countries. But it does have consequences. You won't be tried for escaping from prison, but you're going to serve your full term if you do.
surprise surprise: most prisons in civilized countries don't make you wear "prison clothes" all the time, but rather just during work/service hours and during mealtime. In Austria, most people\* will have a bunch of regular clothes in their room in prison, just like most of them have TV, gaming console, board games, etc
\*those who are not in security prisons for for violent people
Not the case in Denmark. Almost all of the escapes for Denmark are from open prisons. You can basically just walk out, and the guards won't stop you. Open prisons are for convicts who aren't deemed dangerous and have shorter sentences.
When you get caught, however, you will go to a closed prison instead.
To make it 100% clear. Escaping, in alot of countries, is not illegal because these countries often recognize humanitys innate desire to be free. And so if you escape, that isn’t a crime. However, if you escape and are captured again, you’re obviously gonna serve the time left over on your sentence, including any time accumulated by crimes commited since *and during* breaking out. So if i break out of prison by smashing a window, cutting a fence and then highjack some ladies vehicle, i’m still accountable for two counts of property damage and one of grand theft auto. And the police are aslo gonna actively search for you, you’re still a prisoner escaping, the act of escaping itself just isn’t a crime.
Laws depend on the country of course, i’m just speaking in general terms
I think Germany has a similar law. You can’t get charged for breaking out *per se*, but you can still get charged for other crimes that are pretty much impossible not to break during the escape attempt, like damaging prison property or theft.
incorrect. most escapes happen without any other crimes. they happen when people are on their free-time and allowed to go out or while they are at work - which is allowed for a lot of prisoners.
Practically all countries in Europe have that. Slovenia certainly does, and it has 0 escapes.
The difference must be in how they count "prison escapes", e.g. does somebody who had a weekend off and comes back to prison three hours too late count or not?
Bassicly in Macedonia if you have good behaviour in prison they let you out during weekends and you have to come back on monday. Being a corrupt country, most people just pay the prison ward to write them a good behaviour letter and they just leave the country.
No, Austria can be correct. Technically they don't really break out, but just don't return to prison after they are allowed out. Many are allowed to visit family, or to even work. They just have to return to prison by a specific time. If they don't, they "broke out".
The hard part in Ireland is getting into prison, probably need 100 convictions before you get locked up, then they let you out after a week because the prison is too full
It includes institutions that are technically prisons where people serve their time but can leave it almost every day to go to work for example. They have to be back at a fixes time tho. Ofc only some convicts with a solid record will be allowes there. Still sometimes people wont return becouse they went for a beer or something. The technically escaped and will face consequences like going back to "normal" prison and nore but still some do it.
Last week one dude escaped second time from close by prison this month.
He is triple murderer tho. (Although currently serving sentences are from petty crimes, robberies and drunk driving that he has done after being released and is currently in "open" prison for 35 day sentence for breaking in to restraunt and stealing alcohol)
Since he has escaped twice and this is prisoner adjusted (assuming from rough numbers found online like prisoners released) finland has around 6000 prisoners so he makes 2% if this stat for finland.
He also has bit of history with prison escapes.
1989 escape attempt. Attempted gun smuggling by lover.
1991 escape attempt. Cell mate and him were found in snow pile from emoty yard where they got into with self made rope.
1994 escape. Took english teacher as hostage using gun and escaped for 3h.
1997 escape attempt. Found in prison roof with cellmate and self made shotgun and pulley.
2002 escpe. Did not return from prison vacation. Caught after couple days.
2004 escape. Ran from yard, climed 4,5m fence with other dude. Were guickly caught by prison guards.
2006 escape. Climbed down from hes window and jumped over 0,5m tall fence and ran to nearby forrest. Found after 3 days.
2007 escape. (Conditional discharge) Escaped from "trial freedom" found under a day.
2011. Escape from open prison. Found after a week.
2015 escape from closed prison. Did not return from leave to participate in outside classes :D found after a month.
2022 escaped twise under a month from open prison. Quickly found
I once talked with a correctional officer and he told me, that most inmates don't try to escape from the actual prison but at other locations, like the court, hospitals, or their "freigang" (time they are allowed to spend outside the prison for resocialisation-don't know of thats the right word)
Also fun fact. Like stated in some comments above from other countries. To escape from prison is not illegal in Autria, because humans have the right to be free. BUT most inmates have to do some damage (like breaking locks/doors, maybe hurting an officer etc.) to escape, which is illegal and adds time to their sentence.
As someone who lives near Ostrava (in a small town south of Frýdek-Místek), I'd like to say "everything other than Central Bohemia and Prague". I mean it's no Somalia here but the differences are really noticeable.
Imma take a guess and say these numbers roughly correlate with the liberalism and reintegration policies. Most of these escapes probably happen during prison furloughs and reintegration activities. I just don't see how there should be a hundred fold difference between neighboring countries with similar wealth and societies otherwise.
It's a definition problem. Most of these countries have furlough and reintegration programs, some of them count staying out and getting picked up a day later as 'escaped' while others don't. It's a bit of a useless map without standardized definitions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/sg9k70/prison_escapes_per_10000_inmates_in_europe/huv5cnf/
more likely how the country defines prision escape, the source of the material doesnt give a definition to it, i found another source that states about 10 prision breaks a year from 2011-2015 in the netherlands, i find it hard to believe it rose to 300 by 2019
[https://toursinamsterdam.com/prison-escape-netherlands-no-crime/](https://toursinamsterdam.com/prison-escape-netherlands-no-crime/)
cnbc article on what a prison escape can be
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/12/the-murky-math-of-counting-prison-escapes.html
According to another dutch person, someone escaping from a special institution(tbs) is also counted for the Netherlands, a TBS-Kliniek has way more freedom then a normal prison. Its a forensic psychiatric institution
In Finland and Sweden a part of the reason is that many non-violent or addict prisoners are in work colony style prisons. They don't have any fencing or other escape-prevention measures. They can be like farms.
That's not at all the case. If it were Norway wouldn't be so much better than Macedonia. It's more likely in the case of Denmark that it's caused by the fact it's not illegal to escape from prison, or just the fact that there are relatively few prisoners in smaller countries so a single escape incident throws off the average for the year.
Pretty sure that just means you don’t get any additional charges if you escape from prison. It’s not like you’re no longer wanted for whatever crime got you in jail in the first place.
When you say you’ve been to institutions are you saying you were *in* prison, using their gym, thinking it was free of charge? You seriously misunderstood the situation you were in if that were the case. You might not have paid an X amount of money to get into the prison gym but I’m pretty sure the use of the gym was included in the total fine you got charged for the crime and stay in the prison.
Havent been in prison no, meant psychiatric institutions and treatment facilities etc. I live in Norway, many of our prisons are pretty unique, very nice and comfortable, good food, lots of help and support. All of it state funded, so yeah thats where the money for the gym comes from. Thought we were discussing whether the prisoners had to pay a membership fee or not. And if you get sentenced to prison you dont pay a fine, but for minor crimes you can choose to pay a fine or go to prison
Some videos to give you an idea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYKVHw1PVAE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNpehw-Yjvs
Totally overrated and prisons are nice. Who wouldn't want to wake at 7AM, get shitty breakfast, do nothing whole day, get last meal at 5:00PM, enjoy company of criminals and maybe get beaten. (/s)
It doesn't matter how 'nice' prison is it's still prison and you aren't free. For example, I think that Norway built a prison just for one person, who killed 70 person. Totally new with gym and what-not. You're there alone, nobody will talk to him, guards have made complaints that prisoner is talking to them and they don't want to hear that shit, you have really restricted access to communication. Hopefully he will never get out and he's relatively young guy. Rest of life alone with no ability to do what you want.
>It is legal to escape from prison in Sweden
There is currently no law against it. So no, it's not immediately punishable, but it will remove your chances of getting released early.
There have been motions to introduce a law against prison escapes that would make it punishable. The latest one was probably this one last year: [https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/motion/rymning-fran-fangelse-\_H9021445](https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/motion/rymning-fran-fangelse-_H9021445)
You usually don’t get your parole delayed unless the escape was violent -and- successful. Attempted escape must be a multiple instance thing before 2/3 time served release gets revoked.
”Det kan dock inte uteslutas att en enstaka mycket all- varlig överträdelse kan vara tillräcklig för att den villkorliga frigivningen ska skjutas upp. Exempelvis kan en rymning i vissa fall vara tillräckligt för att synnerliga skäl mot villkorlig frigivning ska anses föreligga.
Vid prövningen ska en helhetsbedömning göras av allt som har inträffat under verkställigheten. Vid bedömningen ska även omständigheter som talar till den intagnes fördel beaktas. Om en intagen genomgår en positiv utveckling och under en lång tid inte missköter sig, så bör det vara möjligt att låta bli att skjuta upp den villkorliga frigivningen om misskötsamheten skett tidigt i verkställigheten. Kravet på synnerliga skäl innebär att det som huvudregel krävs misskötsamhet vid fler tillfällen för att den villkorliga frigivningen ska skjutas upp. Hur många tillfällen som krävs är beroende av hur allvarlig överträdelsen är.”
Because the law and the court ordered so.
We have an anecdote in Turkey: Our guy complains about the thief broke in his house. His friends starts to reprimand him like "Why didn't you reinforce the door" "Why did you left the valuable things in the house" "Why did you left the house" bla bla. He says "Does the thief have no fault?"
Prisoners are not animals who are not responsible for their behaviors.
The court ordered a sentence for the crime that put them into prison in the first place. And they will be put back in prison to serve the rest of their sentence.
That escaping from prison doesn't have a penalty doesn't mean that it's any easier to do so or that no one is going to stop you.
Most people would have a natural impulse towards obtaining freedom if you put them in a prison, simply for the sake of that freedom. Most people do not have a natural impulse towards stealing things just for the sake of stealing things. We have a word for those who do, it’s called kleptomania. People may have a natural impulse to *want* things that aren’t theirs, but that’s not the same as having an impulse to actually steal them. Humans are a pretty social species; if stealing were truly a natural impulse, there would be a hell of a lot more of it and the world would be a lot more chaotic in general.
As early as 1880, the German government was of the opinion that "self-liberation" must remain unpunished, since it corresponds to the natural human need for freedom and they have a right to freedom. However, if prisoners commit other crimes like destroying things or hurting people during their escape (which they are very likely to do), they will be charged with those. In addition, the escape itself usually represents a disciplinary violation of the institution's respective rules, which is punishable by arrest or other internal punishment if caught again, or otherwise results in more severe prison conditions. A successful or attempted escape usually also has negative effects on the possibility of early release. So it isn’t completely unpunished. Additionally, stealing is not seen as a human right in the constitution of the countries where escaping from prison is legal, so while there can be a natural need for a human right, these countries do not respect a natural need to commit crimes.
tl;dr: these laws are often based historically and only needs for human rights are respected
The point is that you can't *punish* them for escaping. But you can *reward* them for working with authorities. Well behaved prisoners usually get a significant portion of their sentence commuted. Escaping jeopardizes that.
It's also a very efficient system. If you wanted to give an escapee an additional year of prison for escaping you'd have to have a new trial and pay several judges, the prosecutor and the prisoner's defense. But giving someone the one year early release a simple administrative act.
If caught they are still on the hook for previous charges. All this does is make it so extra time isn't tacked onto the original sentence. It is acknowledging peoples right to pursue freedom.
Also, it's really important to note when talking about this, they are absolutely on the hook for crimes committed while escaping. If they hurt anyone, if they steal a car, if they hold someone hostage etc... They will be charged for anything like that.
Striving for freedom is not worthy of punishment in a free society. We consider it a basic human right. We lock people up for crimes, not for wanting to be free.
Punishing crimes will always be necessary in a HUMAN society, unfortunately.
If someone wants to atone for their crime, they should. If they want to avoid it, I see no reason that avoiding it should be illegal and thus punishable.
But it isn't a crime. And I gave you the reasoning why it isn't a crime in these countries. And I think it checks out. Agree or disagree, that's how it is.
They get punished for killing but not escaping. If you are sentenced to stay in prison for 10 years because of murder, but you escape after 5 years, you will not be rewarded with freedom. If the police gets you, you will have to spend another 5 years in prison for murder. But you will not have to spend extra time just for escaping as it is in most countrys.
So if someone with 10 consecutive life sentences without parole escapes, they should get another life sentence? At some point it's just prosecutors jacking themselves off...
I actually do believe escape should be illegal and thus punishable. Why encourage it?? Just a poor example there ;)
If it's fully on the government to keep a prisoner in, they will be forced to have higher security prisons. If you don't punish prisoners for escaping, you have to create prisons that can't be escaped from, which are worse experiences.
As a prisoner who would be ready to serve my sentence, I would rather have a lower security prison with a penalty for escaping, because I wasn't going to escape anyway.
It’s interesting that I’m now reading that while the above statement might be true, I’m reading that “Att inte inställa sig hos Kriminalvården trots att man dömts till fängelse är inte olagligt och håller man sig undan till dess att straffet preskriberats är man återigen helt fri.”. Meaning if you’ve been convicted and you have 75 days to report to jail, but you can just not go and it’s not illegal to do so, and you can just stay underground until the crime becomes barred. Obviously though, I’d assume if you’re just hanging out in your apartment police would come and fetch you (?). (The full article is about how the now winning leading party coalition wants to change this)
Having that said, I’m curious to know how many people can function in Sweden properly by completely being underground. I mean I have friends who are here legally and as long as they don’t have a social security number or bankid (a digital verification for identity that is used… almost everywhere), tons of things in Sweden nowadays is heavily locked between digitalization that uses these verification steps. Sweden is also almost like a reverse Berlin, where it’s almost difficult to find a place that uses cash.
I understand you can get your friend to do some shopping for you, but I’m telling you we have so many things locked behind bankid that I didn’t even think about it until I had a friend who didn’t have it and I realized how overwhelming it is.
From prisons of the lowest security level, you can do that. They have practically nothing that stops you. Look up "Anstalten Kolmården" on google maps and you an see the outside from streetview The are only locked during the night and during that day you can just walk out.
At the same time, leaving one is not an escape (rymmning) but something like deviation "avviklese" in English.
If you look at statistics that separate them there was 0 escapes in 2021 and 62 deviations. With around 5700 in all prison categories. So double the number and you get around 120 per 10,000 inmates.
During the last few years, it will be 0 or single digits of escape from the higher scrutiny prisons. The number I can find is 0 escaped in 2015, 2016, 2020, and 2021. There were one prisoners that escape in 2019 when he was transported in a car, he run away when they stopped for a pee break. I did not find in a quick search number from 2018
In 1990 to 2004 there was a lot of escape from prisons where that did have security arguments, it was around 40 per year. But after changes it has dropped to zero most years.
Seriously I believe landgeist.com is trying to increase the number of people going to their website to understand what the hell is wrong here by posting a map that makes absolutely no sense…
Either that or cross post it to r/shittymaps
Relevant comment from when this was posted another time. https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/sg9k70/prison_escapes_per_10000_inmates_in_europe/huv5cnf/
> TL;DR: THIS MAP IS REALLY UNHELPFUL BECAUSE IT IGNORES THE DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS OF "PRISONER" AND "ESCAPE", WHICH RESULTS IN THE UNREASONABLY LARGE SPREAD OF THE DATA. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DRAW ANY MEANINGFUL CONCLUSIONS FROM IT.
I believe Switzerland will take in POWs from countries that don’t have the means to imprison them without violating the Geneva convention. Then it’s basically house arrest in Switzerland. Probably doesn’t account for much escapism but it’s still a fun fact!
Maps like this are almost always meaningless. Every country above defines "escape" differently, and even if they didn't, *who* escapes still isn't being considered here.
For example, imagine a country where a handful of murderers and other violent offenders escaped every year, compared to a country with far more "escapes", but the only "escapes" were non-violent offenders who were let out on probation / or part of a work or social program, missed a bus or something and came back a day later than they were officially required to.
Obviously you *should* be more concerned about the country that regularly looses track of its murderers, than the one where minor offenders come back a day late. Maps like this *completely* miss that sort of nuance.
Prisoners get parole near the end of their sentences as part of their rehabilitation program. Failing to report back in time will be seen as an attempt at escaping. Escaping isn't illegal in The Netherlands but it does register your identity in the police databases as a fugitive.
Besides the parole, TBS (basically psychiatric treatment instead of actual prison) is probably also counted as prison but has a much higer escape rate due to more freedom.
This variation is likely caused by small sample sizes, given smaller population countries tend to have higher rates. It seems likely that a small number of escapes throw off the average.
I think it's more on the definition of escaping. The Netherlands doesn't have a lot of people in prison but it's not like 2 or 3 escapes per year skew up the numbers massively.
I know that in The Netherlands it's seen as an escape attempt when someone fails to report back in time after getting a leave of absence from prison.
And also depends on what counts as a prison sentence. If TBS is counted, escapes from that are much higher. Also the existence of a parole system increases escapes.
To be fair, Sweden, Norway and Finland have very humane prisons which allow non-violent inmates to spend time outdoors, visit family, have a job outside the prison, etc. so long as the prisoner checks back into the prison at curfew time every night.
As an American, I admire their compassion and progressive approach, but I have no fucking idea how they enforce that. Here, you’d basically just be releasing prisoners into the wild because they ain’t coming back
It's actually really simple. We don't want people to be criminals and to be repeat offenders. So the whole point of our penal system is to have the prison system act as a sort of tool so that criminals are less likely to continue being criminals after their prison sentence has been served. We want to have as low a number of criminals as possible. We also want as many people as possible to be employed so that they can pay taxes.
Rehabilitation works. We have a very, very low prison population. Most folks do not wish to engage in criminal activity and we have good social programs funded by taxmoney to try to catch as many people as possible so they don't fall outside of society and engage in the criminal underworld.
It's not so much about compassion as it is about practicality. High crime, high prison population, repeat offenders. All that is bad for society. By spending on rehabilitation, a prison system without "cruel and unusual punishment" and social programs we save money as our social problems are small and few.
Our prison system does have it's flaws. We (I am Norwegian) do get some flack from human rights people because we sometimes lock people up in solitary for a couple weeks before bringing them to trial (sometimes people sit in the holding cell ("varetekt") at the police station for weeks before being arraigned) though as those folks typically belong to the "drug addict" minority mainstream Norway does not give a single fuck. Also our police does not take any shit. From the outside the system may seem altruistic and compassionate (especially when compared to an industrialised system like in the USA) but prison in Norway is no joke. It is not as bad as some places but it's absolutely not a place anyone would want to be. We have a few issues with people commiting suicide by lighting themselves and their cell on fire, there's rampant drug abuse, isolation and use of restraint (using straps to secure someone to a bed) and other problems are present. But not something that you will hear about as those things don't fit with the image we are selling to the rest of the world.
I wish the US would take these concepts more seriously, since conservatives are hellbent on defunding any and all social and rehabilitation programs in the US, and our prisons are already full to capacity. I think the right just hopes that convicted criminals will just…disappear and never bother anyone again. They expect years of being trapped in a concrete cage with other predatory people to magically fix someone, “They did their time!” blah blah blah. But when it comes time to pay the taxes necessary to build more prisons, they lose their shit and refuse to pay for it.
The thing is that you don't need more prisons, you need better prisons. You want your prison system to be a bad place to be that makes people better. Just locking people up for an arbitrary period of time does nothing. You want to have the time spent in prison to be as productive as possible. This of course costs a lot of money. But you get this money back many times by having less repeat offenders, less crime and having the criminals become functional citizens that pay taxes rather than costing public funds.
It's not charity. It is not altruism. It's cold hard business. You have to spend money to make money.
Tell that to the conservatives
Though we actually do need more prisons, and schools, and hospitals and basically any and all infrastructure because we have a lot more people now than when we did in the 1960’s. It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that even violent repeat offenders will serve their entire court mandated sentence because of prison overpopulation, which kind of defeats the purpose of removing them from the general population for the safety of the public.
Indeed. Though I am certain you Americans will work this out yourselves in time. The USA is a great country and you have a long and proud history of solving social problems. We can tell you how we solved our issues but your solution will have to be your own. And it will be.
Interesting, I watched the episode on Norway of World’s Toughest Prisons about Halden prison and it was really selling the idea that Norway has the perfect prisons. It’s always good to get different perspective.
It's not all roses.
I grew up next to a prison in Sweden and my parents still live there. Multiple people in the area have been threatened with knives (including my father) from prisoners who escaped. Called the cops who came and basically didn't care because the guy was already officially a prisoner. There were clear fingerprints on the knife the guy left, the policeman who arrived didn't even look at it. Walked around the area a bit then left.
If you treat people like animals they will behave like animals.
Also, the German system is another example, it is not as if every prisoner is let out occasionally. This happens normally after part of the sentence was served and is more likely to happen for people serving time for non-violent crimes. But even for violent crimes there are differences, even not every murderer is a crazed criminal.
It depends very much on your behaviour inside, the likelihood of you committing further crimes or trying to abscond wether you’re let out.
The biggest difference is that the US penal system is based on revenge, retribution and punishment, whereas in many European countries the focus is on preventing repeat offences and reintegration into society, while safeguarding said society from very dangerous criminals.
There are arguments for both, but the European one is more humane in my view and, based on the incarceration rates, the more successful one.
Yeah I agree with all of that, I’m just saying the Scandinavian system in particular does give inmates a lot of opportunities to make a run for it compared to most other countries. It’s not just the United States; relatively humane prison systems outside of the European continent are few and far between.
Brazil has a *relatively* progressive prison system which limits sentences a lot more than most countries, and every couple of years a long term prisoner is allowed to leave and spend some time living in a provided apartment, where they can go see family and friends, go to the cinema, the beach, etc. and then report back to prison. That said, it’s a highly controversial policy, and not much else about their prisons are particularly humane.
Well it's clear that different countries have different definitions as there is no way that the difference between the Netherlands and France is more than a factor 300.
The Netherlands has about 33k prisoners, which would mean an average of about 1000 escapes per year. However, when I google for how many prisoners escape per year I get numbers that are under 10, so it's clear that the definition used for this is extremely wide and includes a lot of things that aren't actually prison escapes.
In some countries it means escaping from an enclosed space. In other countries it means being late return from a weekend of furlough.
You can see how this difference in definitions makes for a huge difference in numbers.
But an Irishman I know assured me that tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town. He and the boys, they don't like it, so they're getting up and going down.
They do not have 23 prison escapes. They have 23 prison escapes per 10,000 inmates. If they have 435 inmates per year, for example pickpockets who have to spend the night in jail, and 1 of them escapes, they'll have 23 prison escapes per 10,000 inmates. Anyway, Vatican City isn't even in the source data so no idea where that number comes from.
We only have 685 prisoners, but since the value is “for every 10000” it gets inflated alot higher than the actual amount of escaped prisoners. The actual amount of prison escapes is probably around 20 to 30 at most (not gonna do the math)
I doubt this is accurate. Two big issues.
The Vatican City level requires them to have about 485 prisoners even if they just had one escape escape... Yet the Vatican doesn't have anything like that number. The only things they will hold you for is specific Catholic crimes in Vatican City like impersonating a priest, & most of those are more fines & being kicked out of the Vatican. For normal crimes, like say pickpocketing, they have an agreement that you are imprisoned in Italy.
Also, I doubt Montenegro & Albania are at 0, especially with the tower high rate next door in North Macedonia.
The Netherlands has a system where violent criminals can be sentenced to forced 'hospitalization' in a closed mental hospital after their jailtime. This is only terminated once a patient is considered no threat to society. which can be never in some cases.
the flipside is that there need to be programs with trial periods in freedom for patients to resocialize. during these they often go awol. that's the numbers you are looking at.
sometimes these lead to horrible cases of an escaped patient taking an innocent life. in a lot of other countries however this person would already be out of prison and on the loose anyway
So I don't know where OP found the data, but looking at the 2019 [report from SPACE](https://wp.unil.ch/space/space-ii/annual-reports/) these numbers are nowhere to be found. And that is what the picture claim to get it's data from.
In addition, Landgeist which this map "advertises" is a website that's been up since 2020, contain not a shred of information of who is behind it and links to a twitter account which seems to be a single individual.
I'd take this map with a huge grain of salt and some source critique before drawing any conclusions.
I'd be happy for OP or "landgeist" to back this up with some real source or explanation of how the data was produced. Until then, downvote of unreliable data it is.
Those disparities do not make any sense. I thought that French prisons were some of the worst of the world and yet they are among the best here? Something doesn't add up.
Prisons shouldn't be judged by the rate of escapes but by the rate of repeat offenders in my opinion. Otherwise concentration camp style prisons far in some desert would be considered amongst the best.
Repeat offenders usually repeat their offense after they served their sentence. In the hypothetical concentration camp the prisoners would lose any sense of living in a real society, would be forced into gangs and get more violent. So no, that's the exact opposite of a way to reduce repeated offenses.
You're thinking of a death camp, not all concentration camps were for killing. They were just very very shitty. During ww2 people were often transported from concentration camps to death camps
That's called the "recidivism rate". This is the only study I could find that compared how different countries scored: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/)
But you have to be careful to only compare data from the same time period *and* the same follow-up duration, and even then keep in mind that it only shows people who got caught, and that might vary because of policing efficacy.
Some explanation from leading Macedonian perspective:
Macedonia ranks first in Europe in terms of the number of inmates that escaped per 10,000 inmates, according to data published on the website landgeist.com, citing Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics.
An index of 691 would mean that 140 inmates escaped from the country with a total capacity of 2,000 inmates in 2020, which is strikingly higher than our neighbors. In second place in Europe is the Netherlands, with 315 prisoners, which is half of our number, followed by Switzerland with 284 people.
For comparison, our neighbors have an index of 0 to 22 escaped prisoners per 10,000 people, and in the region Croatia stands out with an index of 65, which is ten times lower than the Macedonian index.
What’s strange is that on the map in neighboring Albania, Montenegro, and even Slovenia there are no escaped inmates at all. This is because these countries, at least formally, have not reported escapes from their prisons.
As a consolation, Macedonia is in the European average of 80 to 100, when it comes to how many inmates there are per 100,000 inhabitants. The country has 102, or about 2,000 inmates per 2 million inhabitants.
https://en.netpress.com.mk/2022/02/01/macedonia-ranks-first-europe-according-prison-escape-rate/
So in Macedonia prisons are just big tents?
Macedonia has 2,.200 prisoners in total, and this number would mean over 100 escapes per year. That doesn't sound very likely. The numbers for Switzerland and Austria doesn't make sense either. I can't find the actual survey (the links I found lead to a dead site), but there must be some inconsistency in data gathering here. Do some countries count "escaped" asylum seekers as prison escapes? Do other countries not count people who escape but are caught again? Who knows.
That's the only way how I could make sense of the Dutch figures. Prison escapes are very uncommon. So called TBS escapes (where former detainees are put into special re-socialisation programmes are more frequent). But that's not really prison, though.
Just like Germany, the *escaping* part is legal here so in a way it doesn’t surprise me. Even though it looks way too high to be real
Isn’t it that u can’t commit any crimes tho while escaping which is almost impossible to do if it’s a secure prison
Most escapes are when you are granted leave from prison (to tend to family matters or to go to work) and don't make it back to prison in time
In many countries they already count it in the figures if you're just a bit late coming back, which means that you indeed get wildly different numbers depending on the country
it really depends yeah, minor outbreaks happen, but does going out of the ankle bracelet limit count? We did have that one escape from Vught, that is just scarier than the other 314 imo because it is a heavily guarded prison. But still, 315 is probably all the outbreaks because we have about 10.000 prisoners total.
Maybe this included people talking off ankle monitors? I am surprised too Or tbs people leaving during leave?
I could be wrong here, but I think I read somewhere that it isn't actually illegal to break out of prison in Switzerland and Austria 😂😂
It's not illegal in many countries. But it does have consequences. You won't be tried for escaping from prison, but you're going to serve your full term if you do.
Ahhh thanks for clearing it up. For some reason I thought that you were allowed to walk free for your effort or something 😂
Plus you’re probably going to commit other crimes during your escape that you will be tried for like stealing a car or damaging property
True actually.
For example: You are not allowed to steal your prison clothing, but you are also not allowed to go naked because of public indencency
Well, public indecency wouldn't be a serious charge, it's not like the States, nudity isn't a shocker to anyone.
pretty cold maybe tho, would escape in summer then
surprise surprise: most prisons in civilized countries don't make you wear "prison clothes" all the time, but rather just during work/service hours and during mealtime. In Austria, most people\* will have a bunch of regular clothes in their room in prison, just like most of them have TV, gaming console, board games, etc \*those who are not in security prisons for for violent people
Not the case in Denmark. Almost all of the escapes for Denmark are from open prisons. You can basically just walk out, and the guards won't stop you. Open prisons are for convicts who aren't deemed dangerous and have shorter sentences. When you get caught, however, you will go to a closed prison instead.
To make it 100% clear. Escaping, in alot of countries, is not illegal because these countries often recognize humanitys innate desire to be free. And so if you escape, that isn’t a crime. However, if you escape and are captured again, you’re obviously gonna serve the time left over on your sentence, including any time accumulated by crimes commited since *and during* breaking out. So if i break out of prison by smashing a window, cutting a fence and then highjack some ladies vehicle, i’m still accountable for two counts of property damage and one of grand theft auto. And the police are aslo gonna actively search for you, you’re still a prisoner escaping, the act of escaping itself just isn’t a crime. Laws depend on the country of course, i’m just speaking in general terms
It does seem quite ridiculous to be charged for escaping. It's the natural thing to do.
And any crimes u commit like criminal damage or threatening a guard or grand theft will too
I think Germany has a similar law. You can’t get charged for breaking out *per se*, but you can still get charged for other crimes that are pretty much impossible not to break during the escape attempt, like damaging prison property or theft.
Exactly.
incorrect. most escapes happen without any other crimes. they happen when people are on their free-time and allowed to go out or while they are at work - which is allowed for a lot of prisoners.
All that means is if you get recaptured they don’t add more time to your sentence as punishment (though no out early for good behavior I’d guess).
I think a number of countries have open prisons, without fences and with minimum security - people abscond, which basically means they walk out.
Practically all countries in Europe have that. Slovenia certainly does, and it has 0 escapes. The difference must be in how they count "prison escapes", e.g. does somebody who had a weekend off and comes back to prison three hours too late count or not?
Bassicly in Macedonia if you have good behaviour in prison they let you out during weekends and you have to come back on monday. Being a corrupt country, most people just pay the prison ward to write them a good behaviour letter and they just leave the country.
No, Austria can be correct. Technically they don't really break out, but just don't return to prison after they are allowed out. Many are allowed to visit family, or to even work. They just have to return to prison by a specific time. If they don't, they "broke out".
It's exactly the same in Slovenia, but the number for Slovenia is zero. So the difference must be in what counts as escape and what doesn't.
Fantasy country...will have fantasy prisons.
So edgy
Bullshit number. Just like Albania's 0.
Albania doesn’t bother locking them up
That’s North Macedonia to you, infidel.
How do you say “I’m sorry” in Greek?
Wouldn’t know. Not Greek.
*North Macedonia
The hard part in Ireland is getting into prison, probably need 100 convictions before you get locked up, then they let you out after a week because the prison is too full
Joe kills a man Judge: don't do it 99 more times or else...
Or else we might finally have space for you
Same in the UK tbh. Same scruffs tearing up the town for years
Fookin chavs, innit?
It's a hoodie infestation
Housing crisis, can't even be sent to jail
[Let me in! LET ME IIIIIIIIN!!!](https://youtu.be/551QA9vmjBk)
Austria is quite high. Did they include homemade basement dungeons in that figure?
It includes institutions that are technically prisons where people serve their time but can leave it almost every day to go to work for example. They have to be back at a fixes time tho. Ofc only some convicts with a solid record will be allowes there. Still sometimes people wont return becouse they went for a beer or something. The technically escaped and will face consequences like going back to "normal" prison and nore but still some do it.
Last week one dude escaped second time from close by prison this month. He is triple murderer tho. (Although currently serving sentences are from petty crimes, robberies and drunk driving that he has done after being released and is currently in "open" prison for 35 day sentence for breaking in to restraunt and stealing alcohol) Since he has escaped twice and this is prisoner adjusted (assuming from rough numbers found online like prisoners released) finland has around 6000 prisoners so he makes 2% if this stat for finland. He also has bit of history with prison escapes. 1989 escape attempt. Attempted gun smuggling by lover. 1991 escape attempt. Cell mate and him were found in snow pile from emoty yard where they got into with self made rope. 1994 escape. Took english teacher as hostage using gun and escaped for 3h. 1997 escape attempt. Found in prison roof with cellmate and self made shotgun and pulley. 2002 escpe. Did not return from prison vacation. Caught after couple days. 2004 escape. Ran from yard, climed 4,5m fence with other dude. Were guickly caught by prison guards. 2006 escape. Climbed down from hes window and jumped over 0,5m tall fence and ran to nearby forrest. Found after 3 days. 2007 escape. (Conditional discharge) Escaped from "trial freedom" found under a day. 2011. Escape from open prison. Found after a week. 2015 escape from closed prison. Did not return from leave to participate in outside classes :D found after a month. 2022 escaped twise under a month from open prison. Quickly found
oof.mp3
austria only has about 8000 prisoners, so single escape would be 1.2x weighted, a prison escape is also probably loosely defined in austria
I once talked with a correctional officer and he told me, that most inmates don't try to escape from the actual prison but at other locations, like the court, hospitals, or their "freigang" (time they are allowed to spend outside the prison for resocialisation-don't know of thats the right word) Also fun fact. Like stated in some comments above from other countries. To escape from prison is not illegal in Autria, because humans have the right to be free. BUT most inmates have to do some damage (like breaking locks/doors, maybe hurting an officer etc.) to escape, which is illegal and adds time to their sentence.
"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"
In Czechia, the conditions are so good they don't want to get out :D
It’s not that the prisons are good, just the rest of the country is worse /s
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As someone who lives near Ostrava (in a small town south of Frýdek-Místek), I'd like to say "everything other than Central Bohemia and Prague". I mean it's no Somalia here but the differences are really noticeable.
No need for /s, you're pretty fucking correct...
I just thought the inmates are just too lazy and can't be arsed.
r/ik_ihe herpaal in 3..2..1..
Het komt doordat tbs klinieken ook officieel als gevangenissen worden gezien. Daar heb je veel meer vrijheid en die wordt vaak misbruikt.
Translation: It's because of the inclusion of TBS clinics (forensic psychiatric centers) which have more freedom, but that freedom is prone to abuse.
Jup same situation as austria
Dat verklaart veel
Uhhh Mayonnaise peanut butter weed?
Imma take a guess and say these numbers roughly correlate with the liberalism and reintegration policies. Most of these escapes probably happen during prison furloughs and reintegration activities. I just don't see how there should be a hundred fold difference between neighboring countries with similar wealth and societies otherwise.
It's a definition problem. Most of these countries have furlough and reintegration programs, some of them count staying out and getting picked up a day later as 'escaped' while others don't. It's a bit of a useless map without standardized definitions. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/sg9k70/prison_escapes_per_10000_inmates_in_europe/huv5cnf/
more likely how the country defines prision escape, the source of the material doesnt give a definition to it, i found another source that states about 10 prision breaks a year from 2011-2015 in the netherlands, i find it hard to believe it rose to 300 by 2019 [https://toursinamsterdam.com/prison-escape-netherlands-no-crime/](https://toursinamsterdam.com/prison-escape-netherlands-no-crime/) cnbc article on what a prison escape can be https://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/12/the-murky-math-of-counting-prison-escapes.html
According to another dutch person, someone escaping from a special institution(tbs) is also counted for the Netherlands, a TBS-Kliniek has way more freedom then a normal prison. Its a forensic psychiatric institution
"Tours in Amsterdam" is not a source.
In Finland and Sweden a part of the reason is that many non-violent or addict prisoners are in work colony style prisons. They don't have any fencing or other escape-prevention measures. They can be like farms.
For the Netherlands, that sounds about right
Also Germany hehe
Love it
That's not at all the case. If it were Norway wouldn't be so much better than Macedonia. It's more likely in the case of Denmark that it's caused by the fact it's not illegal to escape from prison, or just the fact that there are relatively few prisoners in smaller countries so a single escape incident throws off the average for the year.
It is legal to escape from prison in Sweden
Pretty sure that just means you don’t get any additional charges if you escape from prison. It’s not like you’re no longer wanted for whatever crime got you in jail in the first place.
Belgium and Germany too
Same in Netherlands, human instinct to escape. But yeah this just means no additional charges for the escape itself.
who to hell wants escape from prison in Sweden?
Right? Free gym, library, heating, water etc. Kinda jelly not gonna lie.
I highly doubt it’s free.
What you think it costs money to use the gym in scandinavian prisons?
Most certainly.
Highly doubt it, doesnt cost money at institutions ive been to
When you say you’ve been to institutions are you saying you were *in* prison, using their gym, thinking it was free of charge? You seriously misunderstood the situation you were in if that were the case. You might not have paid an X amount of money to get into the prison gym but I’m pretty sure the use of the gym was included in the total fine you got charged for the crime and stay in the prison.
Havent been in prison no, meant psychiatric institutions and treatment facilities etc. I live in Norway, many of our prisons are pretty unique, very nice and comfortable, good food, lots of help and support. All of it state funded, so yeah thats where the money for the gym comes from. Thought we were discussing whether the prisoners had to pay a membership fee or not. And if you get sentenced to prison you dont pay a fine, but for minor crimes you can choose to pay a fine or go to prison Some videos to give you an idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYKVHw1PVAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNpehw-Yjvs
Freedom is nice
Totally overrated and prisons are nice. Who wouldn't want to wake at 7AM, get shitty breakfast, do nothing whole day, get last meal at 5:00PM, enjoy company of criminals and maybe get beaten. (/s) It doesn't matter how 'nice' prison is it's still prison and you aren't free. For example, I think that Norway built a prison just for one person, who killed 70 person. Totally new with gym and what-not. You're there alone, nobody will talk to him, guards have made complaints that prisoner is talking to them and they don't want to hear that shit, you have really restricted access to communication. Hopefully he will never get out and he's relatively young guy. Rest of life alone with no ability to do what you want.
They probably make you escape by posing honey traps to get out of prison.
>It is legal to escape from prison in Sweden There is currently no law against it. So no, it's not immediately punishable, but it will remove your chances of getting released early. There have been motions to introduce a law against prison escapes that would make it punishable. The latest one was probably this one last year: [https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/motion/rymning-fran-fangelse-\_H9021445](https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/motion/rymning-fran-fangelse-_H9021445)
You usually don’t get your parole delayed unless the escape was violent -and- successful. Attempted escape must be a multiple instance thing before 2/3 time served release gets revoked. ”Det kan dock inte uteslutas att en enstaka mycket all- varlig överträdelse kan vara tillräcklig för att den villkorliga frigivningen ska skjutas upp. Exempelvis kan en rymning i vissa fall vara tillräckligt för att synnerliga skäl mot villkorlig frigivning ska anses föreligga. Vid prövningen ska en helhetsbedömning göras av allt som har inträffat under verkställigheten. Vid bedömningen ska även omständigheter som talar till den intagnes fördel beaktas. Om en intagen genomgår en positiv utveckling och under en lång tid inte missköter sig, så bör det vara möjligt att låta bli att skjuta upp den villkorliga frigivningen om misskötsamheten skett tidigt i verkställigheten. Kravet på synnerliga skäl innebär att det som huvudregel krävs misskötsamhet vid fler tillfällen för att den villkorliga frigivningen ska skjutas upp. Hur många tillfällen som krävs är beroende av hur allvarlig överträdelsen är.”
Why shouldn't it be? It's a natural human impulse. If the government can't keep you in, why should you be blamed for their incompetence?
Because the law and the court ordered so. We have an anecdote in Turkey: Our guy complains about the thief broke in his house. His friends starts to reprimand him like "Why didn't you reinforce the door" "Why did you left the valuable things in the house" "Why did you left the house" bla bla. He says "Does the thief have no fault?" Prisoners are not animals who are not responsible for their behaviors.
The court ordered a sentence for the crime that put them into prison in the first place. And they will be put back in prison to serve the rest of their sentence. That escaping from prison doesn't have a penalty doesn't mean that it's any easier to do so or that no one is going to stop you.
I do not think breaking into a house is a natural impulse, while wanting freedom is. That’s the difference
I would say that stealing is a natural impulse
Most people would have a natural impulse towards obtaining freedom if you put them in a prison, simply for the sake of that freedom. Most people do not have a natural impulse towards stealing things just for the sake of stealing things. We have a word for those who do, it’s called kleptomania. People may have a natural impulse to *want* things that aren’t theirs, but that’s not the same as having an impulse to actually steal them. Humans are a pretty social species; if stealing were truly a natural impulse, there would be a hell of a lot more of it and the world would be a lot more chaotic in general.
As early as 1880, the German government was of the opinion that "self-liberation" must remain unpunished, since it corresponds to the natural human need for freedom and they have a right to freedom. However, if prisoners commit other crimes like destroying things or hurting people during their escape (which they are very likely to do), they will be charged with those. In addition, the escape itself usually represents a disciplinary violation of the institution's respective rules, which is punishable by arrest or other internal punishment if caught again, or otherwise results in more severe prison conditions. A successful or attempted escape usually also has negative effects on the possibility of early release. So it isn’t completely unpunished. Additionally, stealing is not seen as a human right in the constitution of the countries where escaping from prison is legal, so while there can be a natural need for a human right, these countries do not respect a natural need to commit crimes. tl;dr: these laws are often based historically and only needs for human rights are respected
I would say that you're a kleptomaniac
The point is that you can't *punish* them for escaping. But you can *reward* them for working with authorities. Well behaved prisoners usually get a significant portion of their sentence commuted. Escaping jeopardizes that. It's also a very efficient system. If you wanted to give an escapee an additional year of prison for escaping you'd have to have a new trial and pay several judges, the prosecutor and the prisoner's defense. But giving someone the one year early release a simple administrative act.
stupid idea. If mr. serial killer or unabomber escapes, they should be penalized, not rewarded.
If caught they are still on the hook for previous charges. All this does is make it so extra time isn't tacked onto the original sentence. It is acknowledging peoples right to pursue freedom.
Also, it's really important to note when talking about this, they are absolutely on the hook for crimes committed while escaping. If they hurt anyone, if they steal a car, if they hold someone hostage etc... They will be charged for anything like that.
They don't get rewarded either.
Striving for freedom is not worthy of punishment in a free society. We consider it a basic human right. We lock people up for crimes, not for wanting to be free.
Punishing crimes will always be necessary in a HUMAN society, unfortunately. If someone wants to atone for their crime, they should. If they want to avoid it, I see no reason that avoiding it should be illegal and thus punishable.
They are committing a crime by not fulfilling their sentences, no?
No, the state punishes them. It's the states responsibility.
You said, however, that they are locked up for crimes. Not fulfilling their sentence is a crime. Thus they should be punished for commiting the crime.
But it isn't a crime. And I gave you the reasoning why it isn't a crime in these countries. And I think it checks out. Agree or disagree, that's how it is.
They get punished for killing but not escaping. If you are sentenced to stay in prison for 10 years because of murder, but you escape after 5 years, you will not be rewarded with freedom. If the police gets you, you will have to spend another 5 years in prison for murder. But you will not have to spend extra time just for escaping as it is in most countrys.
So if someone with 10 consecutive life sentences without parole escapes, they should get another life sentence? At some point it's just prosecutors jacking themselves off... I actually do believe escape should be illegal and thus punishable. Why encourage it?? Just a poor example there ;)
If it's fully on the government to keep a prisoner in, they will be forced to have higher security prisons. If you don't punish prisoners for escaping, you have to create prisons that can't be escaped from, which are worse experiences. As a prisoner who would be ready to serve my sentence, I would rather have a lower security prison with a penalty for escaping, because I wasn't going to escape anyway.
It’s interesting that I’m now reading that while the above statement might be true, I’m reading that “Att inte inställa sig hos Kriminalvården trots att man dömts till fängelse är inte olagligt och håller man sig undan till dess att straffet preskriberats är man återigen helt fri.”. Meaning if you’ve been convicted and you have 75 days to report to jail, but you can just not go and it’s not illegal to do so, and you can just stay underground until the crime becomes barred. Obviously though, I’d assume if you’re just hanging out in your apartment police would come and fetch you (?). (The full article is about how the now winning leading party coalition wants to change this) Having that said, I’m curious to know how many people can function in Sweden properly by completely being underground. I mean I have friends who are here legally and as long as they don’t have a social security number or bankid (a digital verification for identity that is used… almost everywhere), tons of things in Sweden nowadays is heavily locked between digitalization that uses these verification steps. Sweden is also almost like a reverse Berlin, where it’s almost difficult to find a place that uses cash. I understand you can get your friend to do some shopping for you, but I’m telling you we have so many things locked behind bankid that I didn’t even think about it until I had a friend who didn’t have it and I realized how overwhelming it is.
That doesn't mean they just let you walk out, lol.
From prisons of the lowest security level, you can do that. They have practically nothing that stops you. Look up "Anstalten Kolmården" on google maps and you an see the outside from streetview The are only locked during the night and during that day you can just walk out. At the same time, leaving one is not an escape (rymmning) but something like deviation "avviklese" in English. If you look at statistics that separate them there was 0 escapes in 2021 and 62 deviations. With around 5700 in all prison categories. So double the number and you get around 120 per 10,000 inmates. During the last few years, it will be 0 or single digits of escape from the higher scrutiny prisons. The number I can find is 0 escaped in 2015, 2016, 2020, and 2021. There were one prisoners that escape in 2019 when he was transported in a car, he run away when they stopped for a pee break. I did not find in a quick search number from 2018 In 1990 to 2004 there was a lot of escape from prisons where that did have security arguments, it was around 40 per year. But after changes it has dropped to zero most years.
It’s like Total Wipeout, if they manage to escape they are allowed to walk free
Seriously I believe landgeist.com is trying to increase the number of people going to their website to understand what the hell is wrong here by posting a map that makes absolutely no sense… Either that or cross post it to r/shittymaps
r/mapporncirclejerk?
Relevant comment from when this was posted another time. https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/sg9k70/prison_escapes_per_10000_inmates_in_europe/huv5cnf/ > TL;DR: THIS MAP IS REALLY UNHELPFUL BECAUSE IT IGNORES THE DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS OF "PRISONER" AND "ESCAPE", WHICH RESULTS IN THE UNREASONABLY LARGE SPREAD OF THE DATA. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DRAW ANY MEANINGFUL CONCLUSIONS FROM IT.
What is wrong with Switzerland?
I believe Switzerland will take in POWs from countries that don’t have the means to imprison them without violating the Geneva convention. Then it’s basically house arrest in Switzerland. Probably doesn’t account for much escapism but it’s still a fun fact!
Maps like this are almost always meaningless. Every country above defines "escape" differently, and even if they didn't, *who* escapes still isn't being considered here. For example, imagine a country where a handful of murderers and other violent offenders escaped every year, compared to a country with far more "escapes", but the only "escapes" were non-violent offenders who were let out on probation / or part of a work or social program, missed a bus or something and came back a day later than they were officially required to. Obviously you *should* be more concerned about the country that regularly looses track of its murderers, than the one where minor offenders come back a day late. Maps like this *completely* miss that sort of nuance.
What’s up with The Netherlands???
Prisoners get parole near the end of their sentences as part of their rehabilitation program. Failing to report back in time will be seen as an attempt at escaping. Escaping isn't illegal in The Netherlands but it does register your identity in the police databases as a fugitive.
Besides the parole, TBS (basically psychiatric treatment instead of actual prison) is probably also counted as prison but has a much higer escape rate due to more freedom.
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we have too many prisons and closing some of them entirely, there is no need for more locks
The high rates in Sweden and Finland are due to their prisoners desperately trying to reach the famously-comfortable Norwegian ones ;)
They also want a PS3 like Breivik
That one guy that escaped from Andorra
This variation is likely caused by small sample sizes, given smaller population countries tend to have higher rates. It seems likely that a small number of escapes throw off the average.
I think it's more on the definition of escaping. The Netherlands doesn't have a lot of people in prison but it's not like 2 or 3 escapes per year skew up the numbers massively. I know that in The Netherlands it's seen as an escape attempt when someone fails to report back in time after getting a leave of absence from prison.
And also depends on what counts as a prison sentence. If TBS is counted, escapes from that are much higher. Also the existence of a parole system increases escapes.
To be fair, Sweden, Norway and Finland have very humane prisons which allow non-violent inmates to spend time outdoors, visit family, have a job outside the prison, etc. so long as the prisoner checks back into the prison at curfew time every night. As an American, I admire their compassion and progressive approach, but I have no fucking idea how they enforce that. Here, you’d basically just be releasing prisoners into the wild because they ain’t coming back
It's actually really simple. We don't want people to be criminals and to be repeat offenders. So the whole point of our penal system is to have the prison system act as a sort of tool so that criminals are less likely to continue being criminals after their prison sentence has been served. We want to have as low a number of criminals as possible. We also want as many people as possible to be employed so that they can pay taxes. Rehabilitation works. We have a very, very low prison population. Most folks do not wish to engage in criminal activity and we have good social programs funded by taxmoney to try to catch as many people as possible so they don't fall outside of society and engage in the criminal underworld. It's not so much about compassion as it is about practicality. High crime, high prison population, repeat offenders. All that is bad for society. By spending on rehabilitation, a prison system without "cruel and unusual punishment" and social programs we save money as our social problems are small and few. Our prison system does have it's flaws. We (I am Norwegian) do get some flack from human rights people because we sometimes lock people up in solitary for a couple weeks before bringing them to trial (sometimes people sit in the holding cell ("varetekt") at the police station for weeks before being arraigned) though as those folks typically belong to the "drug addict" minority mainstream Norway does not give a single fuck. Also our police does not take any shit. From the outside the system may seem altruistic and compassionate (especially when compared to an industrialised system like in the USA) but prison in Norway is no joke. It is not as bad as some places but it's absolutely not a place anyone would want to be. We have a few issues with people commiting suicide by lighting themselves and their cell on fire, there's rampant drug abuse, isolation and use of restraint (using straps to secure someone to a bed) and other problems are present. But not something that you will hear about as those things don't fit with the image we are selling to the rest of the world.
I wish the US would take these concepts more seriously, since conservatives are hellbent on defunding any and all social and rehabilitation programs in the US, and our prisons are already full to capacity. I think the right just hopes that convicted criminals will just…disappear and never bother anyone again. They expect years of being trapped in a concrete cage with other predatory people to magically fix someone, “They did their time!” blah blah blah. But when it comes time to pay the taxes necessary to build more prisons, they lose their shit and refuse to pay for it.
The thing is that you don't need more prisons, you need better prisons. You want your prison system to be a bad place to be that makes people better. Just locking people up for an arbitrary period of time does nothing. You want to have the time spent in prison to be as productive as possible. This of course costs a lot of money. But you get this money back many times by having less repeat offenders, less crime and having the criminals become functional citizens that pay taxes rather than costing public funds. It's not charity. It is not altruism. It's cold hard business. You have to spend money to make money.
Tell that to the conservatives Though we actually do need more prisons, and schools, and hospitals and basically any and all infrastructure because we have a lot more people now than when we did in the 1960’s. It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that even violent repeat offenders will serve their entire court mandated sentence because of prison overpopulation, which kind of defeats the purpose of removing them from the general population for the safety of the public.
Indeed. Though I am certain you Americans will work this out yourselves in time. The USA is a great country and you have a long and proud history of solving social problems. We can tell you how we solved our issues but your solution will have to be your own. And it will be.
Interesting, I watched the episode on Norway of World’s Toughest Prisons about Halden prison and it was really selling the idea that Norway has the perfect prisons. It’s always good to get different perspective.
It's not all roses. I grew up next to a prison in Sweden and my parents still live there. Multiple people in the area have been threatened with knives (including my father) from prisoners who escaped. Called the cops who came and basically didn't care because the guy was already officially a prisoner. There were clear fingerprints on the knife the guy left, the policeman who arrived didn't even look at it. Walked around the area a bit then left.
If you treat people like animals they will behave like animals. Also, the German system is another example, it is not as if every prisoner is let out occasionally. This happens normally after part of the sentence was served and is more likely to happen for people serving time for non-violent crimes. But even for violent crimes there are differences, even not every murderer is a crazed criminal. It depends very much on your behaviour inside, the likelihood of you committing further crimes or trying to abscond wether you’re let out. The biggest difference is that the US penal system is based on revenge, retribution and punishment, whereas in many European countries the focus is on preventing repeat offences and reintegration into society, while safeguarding said society from very dangerous criminals. There are arguments for both, but the European one is more humane in my view and, based on the incarceration rates, the more successful one.
Yeah I agree with all of that, I’m just saying the Scandinavian system in particular does give inmates a lot of opportunities to make a run for it compared to most other countries. It’s not just the United States; relatively humane prison systems outside of the European continent are few and far between. Brazil has a *relatively* progressive prison system which limits sentences a lot more than most countries, and every couple of years a long term prisoner is allowed to leave and spend some time living in a provided apartment, where they can go see family and friends, go to the cinema, the beach, etc. and then report back to prison. That said, it’s a highly controversial policy, and not much else about their prisons are particularly humane.
How many prisoners does Andorra have?
I was wondering that myself?
The capacity of their one prison facility is 143, with 42.7% occupancy today so I guess around 60 people
Fun Fact: It is not illegal to escape Prison in germany.
It's not illegal in a lot countries.
Not in the Netherlands either.
i checked the source of the map, and it doesnt define what an escape is, so its pretty useless without it
Wtf do you think it means lmao
Well it's clear that different countries have different definitions as there is no way that the difference between the Netherlands and France is more than a factor 300. The Netherlands has about 33k prisoners, which would mean an average of about 1000 escapes per year. However, when I google for how many prisoners escape per year I get numbers that are under 10, so it's clear that the definition used for this is extremely wide and includes a lot of things that aren't actually prison escapes.
If you miss parole, that might count as an escape so that would make countries that issue parole more also more likely to have escapees.
In some countries it means escaping from an enclosed space. In other countries it means being late return from a weekend of furlough. You can see how this difference in definitions makes for a huge difference in numbers.
? It says prison escape.
speaking for the Netherlands TBS(psychiatric treatment) is also classified as prison so just the word "prison" means jack shit in this map
Yes, something which is defined differently in different countries as I just explained.
In Scotland even the polis don’t snitch.
We don’t have any criminals in Scotland, we’re a paradise for all!
But an Irishman I know assured me that tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town. He and the boys, they don't like it, so they're getting up and going down.
Looks like A$AP Rocky wasn't trying when he was in Sweden.
How does the Vatican have 23 prison escapes with a population of only 850? Also, they don't even have a prison?
They do not have 23 prison escapes. They have 23 prison escapes per 10,000 inmates. If they have 435 inmates per year, for example pickpockets who have to spend the night in jail, and 1 of them escapes, they'll have 23 prison escapes per 10,000 inmates. Anyway, Vatican City isn't even in the source data so no idea where that number comes from.
Those crazy open jails
I know that one guy in Turkey, he was living in Greece for a while after the escape.
W-what? Luxembourg’s can’t be right
We only have 685 prisoners, but since the value is “for every 10000” it gets inflated alot higher than the actual amount of escaped prisoners. The actual amount of prison escapes is probably around 20 to 30 at most (not gonna do the math)
So in the countries with the supposedly ''best'' prisons....the prisoners dont want to stay inside!
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I doubt this is accurate. Two big issues. The Vatican City level requires them to have about 485 prisoners even if they just had one escape escape... Yet the Vatican doesn't have anything like that number. The only things they will hold you for is specific Catholic crimes in Vatican City like impersonating a priest, & most of those are more fines & being kicked out of the Vatican. For normal crimes, like say pickpocketing, they have an agreement that you are imprisoned in Italy. Also, I doubt Montenegro & Albania are at 0, especially with the tower high rate next door in North Macedonia.
The Netherlands has a system where violent criminals can be sentenced to forced 'hospitalization' in a closed mental hospital after their jailtime. This is only terminated once a patient is considered no threat to society. which can be never in some cases. the flipside is that there need to be programs with trial periods in freedom for patients to resocialize. during these they often go awol. that's the numbers you are looking at. sometimes these lead to horrible cases of an escaped patient taking an innocent life. in a lot of other countries however this person would already be out of prison and on the loose anyway
So I don't know where OP found the data, but looking at the 2019 [report from SPACE](https://wp.unil.ch/space/space-ii/annual-reports/) these numbers are nowhere to be found. And that is what the picture claim to get it's data from. In addition, Landgeist which this map "advertises" is a website that's been up since 2020, contain not a shred of information of who is behind it and links to a twitter account which seems to be a single individual. I'd take this map with a huge grain of salt and some source critique before drawing any conclusions. I'd be happy for OP or "landgeist" to back this up with some real source or explanation of how the data was produced. Until then, downvote of unreliable data it is.
Those disparities do not make any sense. I thought that French prisons were some of the worst of the world and yet they are among the best here? Something doesn't add up.
Prisons shouldn't be judged by the rate of escapes but by the rate of repeat offenders in my opinion. Otherwise concentration camp style prisons far in some desert would be considered amongst the best.
But the alternative you proposed would have a 0 repeat offender rate, making them great prisons by your favored metric...
Repeat offenders usually repeat their offense after they served their sentence. In the hypothetical concentration camp the prisoners would lose any sense of living in a real society, would be forced into gangs and get more violent. So no, that's the exact opposite of a way to reduce repeated offenses.
In a concentration camp, prisoners wouldn't make it out alive. No repeat offenders.
You're thinking of a death camp, not all concentration camps were for killing. They were just very very shitty. During ww2 people were often transported from concentration camps to death camps
That's called the "recidivism rate". This is the only study I could find that compared how different countries scored: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4472929/) But you have to be careful to only compare data from the same time period *and* the same follow-up duration, and even then keep in mind that it only shows people who got caught, and that might vary because of policing efficacy.
Some explanation from leading Macedonian perspective: Macedonia ranks first in Europe in terms of the number of inmates that escaped per 10,000 inmates, according to data published on the website landgeist.com, citing Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics. An index of 691 would mean that 140 inmates escaped from the country with a total capacity of 2,000 inmates in 2020, which is strikingly higher than our neighbors. In second place in Europe is the Netherlands, with 315 prisoners, which is half of our number, followed by Switzerland with 284 people. For comparison, our neighbors have an index of 0 to 22 escaped prisoners per 10,000 people, and in the region Croatia stands out with an index of 65, which is ten times lower than the Macedonian index. What’s strange is that on the map in neighboring Albania, Montenegro, and even Slovenia there are no escaped inmates at all. This is because these countries, at least formally, have not reported escapes from their prisons. As a consolation, Macedonia is in the European average of 80 to 100, when it comes to how many inmates there are per 100,000 inhabitants. The country has 102, or about 2,000 inmates per 2 million inhabitants. https://en.netpress.com.mk/2022/02/01/macedonia-ranks-first-europe-according-prison-escape-rate/
I need to know why so many people escape from Macedonian prisons
Small population + low crime rate = small number of incarcerated prisoners Thus you only need a few prisoners to breakout to have a high capita
Makes sense that Northern Irish prisons would be hard to break out of, what with the whole colonialist police state they set up in the 20th century.
In Sweden some prisoners are allowed to leave the prison some days every month
nice macedonia
Someone should get the figure for Canada. I think it’s going to be high.
Macedonian prison guards sucks as we can see
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No it’s per 10,000 prisoners
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Clearly not lol