In The Telegraph today:

The imprisonment rate in England and Wales is the highest of any major country in western Europe, according to figures published today.

It seems we jail 142 people per 100,000 of population while countries like France and Germany jail considerably fewer - 91 and 96 per 100,00 of population respectively.

On the face of it seems that the UK is pretty harsh on its population. It seems even that Mr Blair’s ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ statement has been met with positive action. Well, I find that hard to believe so let’s look a little deeper…

First, the statistic itself is not particularly revealing. To know if 142 people jailed per 100,000 of population is high or low you need to know how much crime’s being committed amongst that population. 142 people per 100, 000 of population in jail is high if there are only 142 crimes per 100, 000 people because it means everybody goes to prison. But if all 100,000 have got their fingers in the till then 142 imprisonments looks pretty paltry.

The more meaningful statistic is the rate of imprisonment per X number of crimes, not per X number of people. It seems we usually measure imprisonment against per 1,000 crimes. That gives us a measure of actual criminality in the society and a corresponding rate of imprisonment in comparison with that.

Which paints a different picture.

Using a graph found on the excellent Civitas blog (with thanks to Blimpish) we can look at some slightly older figures to illustrate the general point.

In 2000, for example, England and Wales together imprisoned 124 people per 100,00o of population. Germany imprisoned just 97 per 100,000.

But if you look at the number of prisoners per 1,000 recorded crimes then both countries imprisoned at the same rate - 12.7 people per 1,000 crimes.

In fact, the UK’s imprisonment rate is quite low compared to the EU average of 17.7 people imprisoned for every 1,000 crimes.

Some countries are prison-crazy. Greece locks ‘em up at the rate of 21.8 people per 1,000 crimes. In Italy it’s 24 people per 1,000 and in Spain - the most severe country in the EU at that time - they must be putting you away for wearing a loud shirt in a built-up area because their imprisonment rate is a whopping 49.1 people per 1,000 crimes.

You know what’s interesting in Spain’s case? A very high rate of imprisonment but a very low rate of crime. At 2,339 crimes per 100,000 people its crime rate is barely one-third of the EU average and is less than a quarter of the UK’s extremely high (50% more than the EU average) crime rate.

Want another? Ireland imprisons like it’s going out of fashion too. At 39.4 jailings per 1,000 crimes they’re the second most severe jailers in the EU (as at the year 2000). Yet at 1,933 crimes per 100,000 people they have the EU’s lowest crime figures.

And so it goes. The general consequences of low imprisonment - as per the UK - is high crime - as per the UK.

Prison isn’t perfect. We don’t do nearly enough to prevent reoffending, we seem not to pay the greatest of attention to educational needs and we possibly aren’t taking seriously enough the appalling backgrounds of some of our prisoners when formulating rehabilitation schemes. So we suffer a very high (approximately 80%) reoffending rate. But criminals in prison can’t commit crime. And those just setting out on a life of crime may well rethink their ambitions after an early and meaningful spell at Her Majesty’s pleasure. The crime and imprisonment figures of the EU seem to suggest that prison does indeed work.