Newly released figures give a glimpse into prison life in Cyprus.
According to police statistics, the prison population on the 1st of September 2022 stood at 927 – 852 males and 75 females. The overwhelming majority of prisoners (97,0%) were 21 years of age or older, while 71,3% were convicted prisoners and 28,7% were prisoners awaiting trial.
According to the report, Cypriot prisoners amounted to 44,8% of the total. The corresponding figures for 2021 were 645 males, corresponding to 91,2% of the total prison population which had reached 707 persons on the 1st of September 2021.
The prisoners who were 21 years of age or older constituted 95,9% of the total, the Cypriot prisoners 51,3% and the convicted prisoners 72,1%.
Most of the sentences imposed in 2022 were of duration up to 18 months, thus resulting in a median length of sentence of 9,6 months compared to 9,1 months in 2021.
The actual period spent in prison, however, is generally shorter than that imposed with the sentence, being reduced primarily by the use of remission. Consequently, the median length of stay in prison for the total number of convicted prisoners, computed based on the number of releases in 2022, was 4,1 months compared to 3,6 months in 2021
