A total of 10,900 new admissions to prisons were registered in 1995. Unsuspended sentences accounted for 6,700 admissions, and just over 3,000 concerned custody.
Since 1993 the number of admissions to Norwegian prisons has dropped by 18 per cent. The decline follows increases in 1992 and 1993 in connection with measures to phase out the queue of convicted persons waiting to serve their sentences. The queue is now gone.
The number of incarcerations without a sentence, i.e. custody, has totalled just over 3,000 in recent years. From a long-term perspective, however, the number of remands has dropped considerably. There were 5,600 remands in 1970 and 4,800 in 1980. The length of custody has increased in the same period. In 1970 none of those released from custody spent more than a year in jail, and only 20 persons had been held from six months to one year. In 1995, however, 158 people had been in custody for more than one year and a further 183 had been remanded for six months to a year. In 1970, four out of five releases from custody concerned stays of under one month, compared to one out of three in 1995.