Prison in southeast Estonia has hundreds of empty cells

31/7/2025 5:57

Estonia showed off

some of the many empty cells in its Tartus prison on Wednesday

as officials outlined how they would implement a proposed

agreement for Sweden to send up to 600 inmates to the facility

from late next year.



The inter-governmental deal, which has yet to be approved by

either country's parliament, is one of many plans worldwide to

tackle prison overcrowding - a critical challenge in a third of

European countries according to a report published this month.



With around 600 of 933 places in Tartu Prison vacant,

officers showed journalists around the facility, completed in

2002, as part of efforts to promote the idea locally as well as

to the public across the Baltic Sea in wealthier Sweden.



Sweden will pay 8,500 euros a month per inmate in Estonia

saving on the average 11,500 euros a month cost in Sweden.



Estonia will make its own checks of prisoners selected to be

sent to Tartu, and will have right to send prisoners back, said

Rait Kuuse, head of Estonian Prison and Probation Service.



"We don't take those who are organisers in organised crime

networks, who adhere to radical extremism," he said.



Some people in Tartu, Estonia's second biggest city after

the capital Tallinn, believe the scheme will bring jobs and a

boost for the economy while others fear a negative effect on the

local community, he said.



Certain prisoners would be excluded from transfer, Martin

Gilla, Head of Office for International Affairs at Sweden's

Prison and Probation Service told Reuters.



"We will not send juveniles, we'll not send women. That's

one thing that we have come up with. We will also not send

people that have been convicted for the worst crimes as well and

have high risks," he said.



Estonia is one of the few European countries to have

recorded a drop in its incarceration rate, which declined 12%

last year from 2023, while Sweden, where gang-related violence

has increased, recorded a 15.5% rise over the same period.



The rate, published in the report by the continent's leading

human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, records the number

of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.



Gilla said Sweden, which had a prison occupancy rate of 141%

in May, was increasing capacity and has considered options such

as prison barges, but that idea was eventually dropped.



At Tartu, the prison interior was painted in bright yellow

and violet, with wooden furniture and bunk beds. There were art

and music rooms and Knuse said inmates would have access to

tablets for videocalling their families at home.



Issues still to be resolved include rehabilitation

programmes, challenges related to visiting by family and

friends, and assuring the right to exercise religion.



The plans are among many such ideas in the region. Belgium

and Norway have in the past hired prison places in the

Netherlands, while Denmark signed a deal with Kosovo in May

2024, a move criticised by Danish human rights experts.



Finland appointed a working group in November to look into

the possibility of renting prison places abroad.