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Weekly Bulletin issue no. 25, 1997

Detention and imprisonment, 1996:

Immigrants held in custody longer

Immigrants spend considerably longer time in custody than Norwegians. Immigrants released last year had spent an average of 96 days in custody, while the comparative figure for Norwegians was 44 days.
Unregistered foreign nationals (foreign citizens without a registered residence in Norway) sat even longer in custody, 147 days. Disregarding citizenship and immigrant background, the time spent in custody by all persons released was an average of 51 days.

Those released from prison last year had spent an average of 100 days behind bars, custody and serving of a sentence included. Men were incarcerated 101 days, women 79. The total time spent in detention and prison was also considerably longer for immigrants than for Norwegians, respectively 165 and 92 days. For unregistered foreigners the average imprisonment was 201 days.

A total of 2,200 men and 100 women were held in Norwegian prisons on 1 January. Immigrants made up 12 per cent and unregistered foreign nationals six per cent of the prison population at the beginning of the year. The number incarcerated at the beginning of the year is normally somewhat lower than the average for the year.

New Statistics

Detention and imprisonment, 1996.
Statistics are published every year in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. More information: Ulla Haslund, tel. +47 21 09 46 46, e-mail: uha@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 25, 1997