-18 “Vulnerable groups of prisoners exist in all EU member states” 1.PRISONERS IN A SITUATION OF VULNERABILITY IN THE EU Vulnerable groups of prisoners exist in all EU and Council of Europe member states. The latter however do not collect statistics on all of them on a systematic basis. According to the most recent SPACE I publication of the Council of Europe, the average share of female prisoners in the CoE member states on 31 January 2019 was 5.3%. In most of the EU member states this share is higher. In several (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, the Slovak Republic and Spain) it exceeded 7%. The respective shares of children are less. In the CoE member states the average on 31 January 2019 was 0.6% of the male prison population. Among the EU member states, it exceeded 1.5% of the male prisoners only in Poland. The proportion of foreigners vary greatly among member states. While their average share in the CoE member states among the male prison population on 31 January 2019 was 21.6%, in the Western European EU member states in some cases it exceeds 45% (Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Luxemburg). On the other hand, some Eastern European member states had very few foreigners among their male prisoners. These include Bulgaria (3%), Latvia (2.4%), Lithuania (2%), Poland (1.4%), Romania (1.2%), and the Slovak Republic (2.1%).12 According to the recent SPACE I statistics, there were 5,658 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment in the EU member states on 31 January 2019. Among the member states with relatively higher shares of life 12. Aebi, M., M. Tiago, SPACE I – 2019: Prison Populations, CoE: Strasbourg, 2020, pp. 43-44.