According to the Council of Europe’s annual SPACE II study for 2025, published on July 9, the Republic of Moldova ranked among the countries with the highest rates of alternative sanctions.
The report indicates that as of January 31, 2025, more than 1.43 million people were under the supervision of probation services in European countries. Compared to the previous year, this number increased by 2.7%.
The study covers 48 probation services in 46 member states of the Council of Europe and analyzes the use of measures that allow convicted persons to remain in the community instead of being held in correctional facilities. These include electronic monitoring, community service, house arrest, treatment, day release, and parole.
The authors of the report note that the expanded use of such measures is taking place against the backdrop of the ongoing problem of overcrowding in European prisons. According to the SPACE I study, published by the Council of Europe in May, nearly half of Europe’s prison systems are already overcrowded or operating at virtually full capacity.
Moldova has joined the group of countries with high levels of probation
In terms of the number of individuals under probation supervision, the Republic of Moldova ranked among the top European countries.
When calculated as the number of citizens under supervision per 100,000 population, Moldova recorded a rate of 320 people, trailing only Poland (652), Turkey (495), Georgia (468), Armenia (430), and Albania (387).
If we consider countries where statistics are compiled based on the number of measures applied, rather than just the number of individuals, Moldova’s rate stands at 384 cases per 100,000 residents, which is also among the highest in Europe.
Meanwhile, the median rate across European countries is 154 people per 100,000 population.
Researchers emphasize that such significant differences reflect the specific characteristics of national criminal justice systems and do not allow for a direct comparison of the effectiveness of probation services across countries.
Probation Is More Often Used Instead of Imprisonment
According to the study, in 28 of the 36 countries that provided comparable data on both probation and the prison population, the rate of probation use was higher than the prison population rate.
Professor Marcelo Aebi of the University of Lausanne, head of the SPACE research team, noted that there is no universal metric for assessing the effectiveness of probation.
According to him, alternative measures are primarily aimed at the social integration of offenders, so the extent of their use should be assessed only in comparison with the prison population.
The study also shows that women account for 10.7% of all individuals under probation supervision, whereas among prisoners, their share is nearly half that—5.4%. Foreign nationals account for about 10% of those under probation supervision, which is significantly lower than in correctional facilities, where foreigners make up about 17% of the prison population.
The annual SPACE I and SPACE II studies are prepared for the Council of Europe by experts at the University of Lausanne and are considered one of the primary sources of comparative statistics on the prison systems and probation services of European countries.
