United Kingdom: wales has highest incarceration rate in western Europe – study

Prison population in 2017 was 154 per 100,000 in Wales, compared with 141 in England.

Wales has the highest rate of imprisonment in western Europe, the first study of its kind has revealed.

Sentencing and Immediate Custody in Wales: A Factfile found that in 2017 (the latest figures available) there were 154 prisoners per 100,000 of the population of Wales, compared with 141 per 100,000 of England.

Campaigners and academics expressed concern following the findings. Plaid Cymru said they showed the penal system was failing and that they added weight to the argument that criminal justice in Wales should be devolved to Cardiff.

It is widely accepted that England and Wales jointly have the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe but this is the first time the figures for each country, which share a legal system, have been analysed separately. Get Society Weekly: our newsletter for public service professionals Read more

The research was carried out by Dr Robert Jones at Cardiff University’s Wales governance centre. He said the figures were worrying but any suggestion that judges and magistrates in Wales were inherently harsher than those in England could not be determined until full sentencing data was further broken down.

Jones said: “The findings pose a number of significant questions and raise many further difficult issues. Wider research is needed to try to explain Wales’ high rate of imprisonment. While this will undoubtedly include further analysis of sentencing outcomes including the use of community sentences, fines and suspended sentences, attention should also be drawn to the significance of wider socioeconomic factors in Wales.“

“In particular, the data should be considered in light of Wales’ status as one of the poorest parts of the UK. Previous research has identified the symbiosis between poverty, marginalisation and imprisonment.”

Liz Saville Roberts, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, said the figures showed the prison system was not fit for purpose.

“Just locking people up does not solve the problem,” she said. “We need a genuinely rehabilitative prison system to break the vicious reoffending cycle that many inmates fall into. For the safety of prison staff, inmates and society as a whole we need to make rehabilitation our number one priority.“

“Wales being at the top of this league table is a source of great shame. Our national assembly for Wales should take control of our prison system so we can create one fit for the unique needs of our nation and not simply allow Westminster to impose its unsuitable policies.”

The study, which was published on Wednesday, used the home addresses of offenders to differentiate between Wales and England. It found a higher proportion of Wales’s overall population was in prison than England’s for every year since 2013, when data became available.

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