How Prison Rates Vary Across Germany

Key Takeaways

• Germany’s national prison population declined over time. It fell from over 70,000 in 2000 to 59,585 in 2020, indicating a long-term reduction in incarceration.
• This decline reflects greater use of alternatives to imprisonment, including fines, suspended sentences, probation, and community-based penalties.
• Prison population rates vary widely across Germany, ranging from 37 to 98 per 100,000 residents, showing that incarceration is not applied evenly nationwide.
• City-states consistently record the highest prison population rates. This is largely due to factors such as concentrated courts and higher use of pre-trial detention.
• Larger territorial states tend to cluster closer to or below the national average. This indicates that imprisonment is used less frequently relative to population size.

Germany’s prison population has declined over the past two decades. In 2020, around 59,585 people were incarcerated nationwide, equal to 72 prisoners per 100,000 residents. This is a significant drop from 2000, when more than 70,000 people were in prison.

One key change over time is how often prison is used. Germany has increasingly relied on alternatives to imprisonment, such as fines, suspended sentences, probation, and community-based penalties. Prison is now more often reserved for serious offenses, repeat offenders, or pre-trial detention.

While Germany’s prison system has been shrinking overall, incarceration rates still vary widely across federal states.

Germany’s Prison Population Rate by Federal State

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Germany’s city-states consistently record some of the highest prison population rates in the country:

• Hamburg: 98
• Berlin: 91
• Bremen: 86

The prison population rate measures the number of incarcerated people per 100,000 residents. These figures sit well above the national average and indicate that incarceration is more concentrated in city-states.

This does not automatically mean that more crime occurs in city-states. Instead, several structural factors help explain the difference:

• More people are held before trial. Large cities handle more cases involving non-residents, tourists, or people without a permanent address. In such cases, courts are more likely to use pre-trial detention to ensure individuals appear for proceedings.
• Justice systems (e.g., police, courts, prisons) are concentrated in smaller areas. This concentration increases the number of people in custody at any given time.
• In urban or densely populated areas, courts may be more likely to use detention for public-order offenses or repeat cases,especially when alternatives such as supervision are harder to manage.

By contrast, larger territorial states fall closer to or below the national rate:

• Baden-Württemberg: 57
• Niedersachsen: 55
• Schleswig-Holstein: 37

This does not mean crime is lower or that punishment is weaker. Rather, it reflects that imprisonment is used less frequently relative to the population. These states have greater reliance on non-custodial penalties and justice systems spread across wider regions.

Overall, prison population rates in Germany range from around 37 per 100,000 residents in some states to nearly 100 per 100,000 in others. This widespread shows that incarceration is not applied uniformly, even within a single national legal framework.

Taken together, the data point to a prison system shaped by national restraint and regional variation. Germany as a whole uses imprisonment less than it did in the past. However, the place or state where you live plays a role in how often prison is applied.