Moldova is among the countries with a higher rate of application of probation, but also of imprisonment, alongside the Czech Republic, Russia and Lithuania, while Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Monaco have low probation and imprisonment rates, shows the annual Council of Europe survey on persons under the supervision of probation agencies in Europe for 2018 (SPACE II) that was presented on May 21 on the occasion of the Council of Europe Conference of Directors of Prison and Probation Services held in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, IPN reports, quoting a press release of the CoE.
The report says the number of Europeans under the supervision of probation agencies, who are subject to community sanctions and measures, such as electronic monitoring, community service, house arrest and treatment, and the number of persons in semi-freedom or released on bail increased, while the number of persons held in jails declined.
This is the result of the Council of Europe’s constant request to the member states to use alternative sanctions as often as possible as these can effectively contribute to the integration of offenders into society, can improve the functioning of jails and can prevent crowdedness in these.
In 2017, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe updated its recommendation of 1992 concerning the European rules on community sanctions and measures that advises the states to ensure their utilization in a proportional and balanced way, taking into account the offenses and profile of the suspect or offender. The goal was to encourage the states to use the community sanctions and measures as an alternative to imprisonment, not as additional sanctions, which can happen if the states start to use them for persons who would normally not be remanded in custody. The large number of evidence factors shows this “extension” of the criminal justice system already takes place in some of the countries.
The survey shows the non-custodial measures continued to be insignificantly used as an alternative to remand detention. The average percentage of persons placed under the supervision of a probation agency before trial was of 3.3.
