CRIME AND IMPRISONMENT PART ONE Crime and imprisonment Crime rates and the use of imprisonment Despite the efforts made by the international community to harmonise how crimes are categorised,1 it remains a challenge to accurately measure crimes rates across the world. This is not least because of the fragmented and incomplete data available. However, there is evidence to suggest that there has been an overall decrease in the rate of crime globally, although there are large variations regionally and between countries.2 There are two notable areas where the rates of offending have increased significantly: cybercrime and drug-related crimes.3 With regard to the increase in cybercrime,4 one (unproven) hypothesis is that ‘traditional’ crime has not necessarily decreased but has migrated or ‘reinvented’ itself in the context of cyberspace.5 The crime of intentional homicide is regarded as one of the most measurable and comparable indicators for monitoring rates of violent deaths, and is often considered both a proxy for violent crime as well as an indicator of levels of security within countries. While an overall decline in intentional homicide was observed from 2004 to 2015,6 there were significant regional variations and high concentrations of intentional homicide in certain countries and within very specific urban areas. Latin America is the region with the highest homicide rates in the world. However, this violence is concentrated in certain countries and cities. Based on available data, men account for 80 per cent of homicide victims globally, with young men particularly vulnerable.7 A report by the global initiative Know Violence in Childhood8 estimated that at least three out of every four of the world’s 1.7 billion children had experienced some form of interpersonal violence, cruelty or abuse in their daily lives during 2015, regardless of whether they lived in rich countries or poor, in the global North or the global South. Although violence against children is a universal phenomenon, regional differences do exist. For example, the highest rates of physical and sexual violence against children were found in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, while the highest homicide rates were in Latin America and West and Central Africa. The 12th edition of the World Prison Population List, produced by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR) in 2018, estimates that there were over 11 million people in prison globally in 2018, either in pre-trial detention or after conviction and sentence.9 Around half of all prisoners are in just four countries – the US, China, Russia and Brazil. There are very significant regional differences in prison populations. Since 2000, the total prison population in Oceania has increased by 86 per cent; in the Americas by 41 per cent; in Asia by 38 per cent; and in Africa by 29 per cent. Particularly large increases have been recorded in South America (175 per cent) and Southeast Asia (122 per cent).10 In Europe, by contrast, the total prison population has decreased by 22 per cent,11 reflecting large falls in prison populations in Russia (45 per cent) and also in Central and Eastern Penal Reform International and Thailand Institute of Justice | Global Prison Trends 2019 Europe. Outside of Russia, Europe’s prison population has increased by three per cent. The significant decrease in Russia’s prison population has led to the closing of 93 prisons in the last seven years.12 The US still maintains its position as the country with the world’s highest national rate of imprisonment (675 prisoners per 100,000 of the national population), far ahead of the next countries on the list – El Salvador (597 per 100,000) and Turkmenistan (552 per 100,000). Significant changes have taken place in individual countries since the 11th World Prison Population List was produced in 2015. From 2015 to 2018, there was a large increase in the rate of imprisonment in Cambodia (a 68 per cent increase in prisoners per 100,000 of the national population), Nicaragua (61 per cent), Egypt (53 per cent) and the Philippines (48 per cent). There have also been large decreases in the past three years in Mexico (23 per cent) and Romania (22 per cent). There is no simple explanation for these widely varying rates in the use and over-use of imprisonment. However, the ICPR finds that ‘the net result of these divergent trends is a world in which the rate of increase in the known total prison population (3.7 per cent) continues to exceed the increase in the general population (3.0 per cent)’. The size of the prison population is defined by two simple factors: how many people are sent to prison and how long they are kept there. Explanations for an increase in the |7