The proportion (%) in 2018 of convicted persons by the length of their sentence is¹:

• Less than a month: 0.1%
• Between one to three months: 0.3%
• Between three and six months: 3.2%
• Between six months and one year: 5.9%
• Between one and three years: 19.4%
• Between three and five years: 21%
• Between five and ten years: 27%
• Between ten and twenty years: 18.2%
• Twenty years or more: 4.5%

Several important reforms to the Penal Code were enacted in 2010, intended to:

• Lower the maximum lengths of sentences and reduce the number of incarcerated persons. The adjustment to sentences principally concerned drug offences and serious road safety infractions.
• Develop alternative sentences, such as community service
• Introduce the principle of “proportionality” in relation to the severity of an infraction, and to decrease the frequency at which people awaiting trial are imprisoned.

There were 58,971 people in prison in January 2019. There were 76, 079 in December 2009.

The Spanish penitentiary system comes under three administrations:

• The General Secretariat for Penitentiary Institutions (SGIP), for all the autonomous communities (with the exception of Catalonia). It is under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior.
• The General Directorate for Penitentiary Services (DGSP) for Catalonia. This falls under the supervision of the Department of Justice.
• The General Administration of the Basque Autonomous Community of the Basque Country for Basque prisons, since October 1st, 2021. The prisons are managed by the Department of Equality, Justice and Social Policies.

A joint committee facilitates coordination between the three administrations.

Detention conditions vary according to the managing authority of a facility, the age of the building, and the prison regime.

The prison regime operates on a system of classification:

• First Grade: this concerns potentially dangerous prisoners. A closed, high-security regime is imposed. This can also apply to prisoners on provisionary detention.
• Second Grade: this concerns prisoners placed in the ordinary closed regime.
• Third Grade: this concerns prisoners who receive a regime of partial liberty. Assignation of this grade is subject to consideration of a prisoner’s personal situation (parenthood, illness, etc), the seriousness of their crime, and their behaviour.

Penitentiary establishments are divided into four categories:

• Closed facilities, of which SGIP oversees 69, and DGSP oversees 9.
• Centres for social integration, semi-open facilities, pf which SGIP oversees 56 and DGSP oversees four.
• Units for mothers, of which SGIP oversees three.
• Penitentiary psychiatric hospitals, numbering two for SGIP and one for DGSP.

The size of facilities varies markedly. The largest complexes accommodate over a thousand prisoners, such as the prison of Sevilla I-Morón de la Frontera, or Madrid VII-Estremera. On the other hand, some facilities have fewer than 100 places. The prison of Cuenca has only 60 cells.

Future prison wardens are required to pass an exam and undertake training to join the prison staff. There are three qualifying exercises: a personality evaluation, a knowledge test, and a medical examination. The selected wardens undergo rotation training. To sit the exam, there are several prerequisites: potential recruits must have Spanish nationality, hold a bachelor’s or vocational degree, and have never been sentenced to a prison term of more than three years.
The prison staff association Tu abandono me puede matar denounce the significant costs charged to staff members to access the mandatory training before assignment to prison facilities. These costs include lodging and amenities relating to the five-week stay.

In 2022, the Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo, Spanish NPM) reports that a programme designed to address discrimination based on gender, age, ethnic background, and disability among staff members was introduced in 2018, following the guidelines of the NPM. This initiative was broadened in 2021 to include psychiatric hospitals and institutions for minors (CIMI), and further extended to police precincts in 2022.¹

As of January 2018, different roles in the prison administration are carried out by 24, 844 members of staff. Wardens represent 62% of the workforce. Lawyers, psychologists, sociologists, teachers, social workers, healthcare professionals and youth workers make up the rest of the staff¹. In their 2015 report, the ACAIP expressed their worries regarding the ageing workforce: 79% of prison employees were under the age of 40 in 1995, falling to 21% in 2015, when 40.9% of workers were over 50 years old. Many members of staff are approaching retirement. They frequently need sick days and cite workplace conditions as a major factor in this.