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Estonia to Lease Surplus Prison Capacity to Sweden
Estonia is advancing a plan to rent its underused prison facilities to Sweden, with parliamentary ratification expected this spring, after a decade-long decline in its domestic inmate population left nearly half of its 3,000 prison beds vacant.
- —Estonia's prison population has significantly decreased, with 1,618 inmates at the start of 2026, a drop of 37 from the previous year, leading to substantial unused capacity.
- —Estonia is in the process of ratifying a prison rental agreement with Sweden to house Swedish inmates, with the agreement having passed its first reading in the Estonian parliament.
- —The number of inmates in Estonian prisons has fallen by nearly half over the past decade, from 2,921 at the end of 2015 to 1,618 in early 2026.
- —Factors contributing to the decline include increased success in criminal supervision and a growing percentage of individuals successfully completing probation.
- —Specific prison capacities show significant underutilization, with Tallinn Prison at 69% capacity, Viru Prison at 43%, and Tartu Prison at 31%.
Recap
Estonia is converting the success of its justice reforms into a commercial venture. The move to lease empty prison cells to Sweden is a pragmatic strategy to monetize underutilized state assets, turning the high fixed costs of modern correctional facilities from a liability into a revenue-generating service for a neighboring state with opposite capacity problems.
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9Вируская тюрьма пустеетJan 21