At the end of last year there were 14,969 people behind bars, according to a report by parliamentary prison commissioner Juan Miguel Petit.

The figure represents a 3.9 percent increase compared to 2022, the annual report on the situation of the prison system says.

Since 2019 and up to the present, the prison population grows on average almost 1,000 people per year.

According to the media Subrayado, the trend is downward, although it climbed in 2024 with seven percent increase, data up to mid-year say.

The growth rate in men was 3.7 percent and in women 6.9 percent.

Forty-five percent of inmates are under 30 years of age and almost two out of three are under 35 years of age, while only 2.4 percent of the total are over 60 years of age, the report states.

Since the new Criminal Procedure Code came into force, there has been a decrease in the percentage of inmates without a sentence, which now stands at 7.8 percent of the total number of inmates.

Uruguay ranks tenth in the world and first in South America with 435 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.

ef/jav/mem/ool