UK top in Europe for number of life sentence prisoners: Study

Rasa - A new study shows that the number of people sentenced to life in prison in the United Kingdom well exceeds figures in other European countries.

News ID: 442044

Date: 12 December 2018 - 11:34

RNA - Results of the new report by the Prison Reform Trust published in TheIndependent newspaper on Tuesday showed that UK prisons were already home to 8,554 inmates with life sentences, more than France, Germany and Italy combined.

The figure also exceeds the total number of life sentence prisoners in Russia and Turkey, said the report.

The new findings come amid recurrent criticism of the British court and prison system as many believe the country is home to some of the most crowded jail facilities in the world.

The report also compared sentencing rates in the UK with a 2016 international study and concluded that Britain is the number one country in Europe when it comes to the proportion of citizens serving life sentences with 13 per 100,000 head of population.

The proportion of life-sentenced prisoners to the overall prison population is also very high in the UK, around 10 percent, a figure which exceeds the existing rates in the United States which has the highest population of prisoners in the world.

Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said there was an immediate need for the government and the judicial system to change the sentencing policy, as otherwise Britain should continue building more and more prisons to accommodate the convicts.

“The longer sentences we’ve seen have not achieved anything in terms of reducing or deterring crime,” said Dawson, adding that “We’ve been building prisons at an extraordinary rate for the last 25 years. We’ve had a massive building program, and yet we still have this overcrowding problem.”

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