Denmark wants to rent prison cells in Kosovo to send 300 detainees there, the Danish government said on Wednesday (December 15th), presenting a new project to stem the tendency of prison overcrowding in the Nordic country.
This project plans to "
rent 300 prison places in Kosovo
" to send foreigners sentenced to deportation in Denmark after having served their sentence, the justice ministry said in a statement.
In 2020, some 350 prisoners in Danish prisons were to be expelled at the end of their sentence.
See also Denmark: deprivation of nationality and ten years in prison for a planned attack
The project also plans to increase the capacity of the Danish prison system by 326 places between 2022 and 2025. Since 2015, the prison population has jumped by 19% in Denmark to reach more than 4,000 people at the start of 2021, which represents a rate of occupancy exceeding 100%, according to national statistics.
During the same period, the number of guards fell by 18% in the Scandinavian kingdom of 5.8 million inhabitants, known for its open prisons reserved for inmates serving sentences of less than five years.
"
We were going to miss up to 1000 places in the prison system by 2025
", noted Minister Nick Haekkerup, quoted in the press release.
In Kosovo, according to figures from the University of London's World Prison Brief, 1,642 people were imprisoned in 2020, for an occupancy rate of 97%.
In the past, Norway and Belgium had already rented cells in the Netherlands, and had sent prisoners there.
