×

Crime > Sentence Length: Countries Compared

Ian Graham, Staff Editor

Author: Ian Graham, Staff Editor

Do long prison sentences deter criminals or are they an indication of a severe crime problem? <p>Colombia has the longest average prison sentence length, at 137 years. It also leads the world in kidnappings (total, per $ GDP and per capita), murders per capita, mortality due to assaults by explosive material(total and per capita), mortality due to assaults by other and unspecified firearm discharge per capita, and mortality due to assaults by sharp objects per capita. <p>Colombia is second for murders with firearms (total and per capita) and third for total murders. It is also in the top five for mortality due to assault in 18 of the 22 recorded categories.
DEFINITION: Total average sentence length served.

CONTENTS

# COUNTRY AMOUNT DATE GRAPH
1 Romania 37,488 2002
2 Burma 16,616 2002
3 Panama 10,103 2002
4 Finland 2,762 2002
5 Nepal 2,216 2002
6 Kuwait 2,183 2002
7 Venezuela 1,422 2002
8 Oman 1,403 2002
9 Morocco 736 2002
10 Maldives 707 2002
11 Colombia 137 2002
12 Moldova 93 2002
13 Suriname 91 2002
14 Qatar 80 2002
15 Croatia 71.2 2002
=16 Botswana 60 2002
=16 Georgia 60 2002
18 Latvia 58 2002
19 Estonia 55 2002
=20 Hungary 52 2002
=20 Lithuania 52 2002
22 Belarus 51 2002
23 South Africa 48.08 2002
24 Dominican Republic 48 2002
25 Australia 41.8 2002
26 Czech Republic 39 2002
27 United Kingdom 38.6 2002
28 Sweden 36 2002
29 Spain 30 2002
30 United States 29 2002
=31 Philippines 24 2002
=31 Papua New Guinea 24 2002
=31 Zimbabwe 24 2002
34 Portugal 21.7 2002
35 Albania 10 2002
=36 Mauritius 9 2002
=36 Turkey 9 2002
=36 New Zealand 9 2002
39 Netherlands 7 2002
40 Hong Kong 6 2002
41 Ukraine 5 2002
42 Iceland 4.7 2002
43 Denmark 3 2002
=44 Montserrat 2 2002
=44 Jamaica 2 2002
46 Canada 1 2002

Citation

Crime > Sentence Length: Countries Compared Map

NationMaster

Interesting observations about Crime > Sentence Length

  • Romania ranked first for sentence length amongst NATO countries in 2002.
  • Australia ranked first for sentence length amongst Non-religious countries in 2002.
  • Finland ranked first for sentence length amongst High income OECD countries in 2002.
  • Canada ranked last for sentence length amongst Group of 7 countries (G7) in 2002.
  • Netherlands ranked second last for sentence length amongst European Union in 2002.
  • United States ranked third for sentence length amongst English speaking countries in 2002.
  • Denmark ranked last for sentence length amongst Europe in 2002.
  • Ukraine ranked last for sentence length amongst Emerging markets in 2002.
  • 3 of the top 4 countries by sentence length are Christian.
  • 2 of the top 3 countries by sentence length are Hot countries.

0

Do long prison sentences deter criminals or are they an indication of a severe crime problem? <p>Colombia has the longest average prison sentence length, at 137 years. It also leads the world in kidnappings (total, per $ GDP and per capita), murders per capita, mortality due to assaults by explosive material(total and per capita), mortality due to assaults by other and unspecified firearm discharge per capita, and mortality due to assaults by sharp objects per capita. <p>Colombia is second for murders with firearms (total and per capita) and third for total murders. It is also in the top five for mortality due to assault in 18 of the 22 recorded categories.

Posted on 23 Mar 2005

Ian Graham, Staff Editor

Ian Graham, Staff Editor

0

is this years, months, days? Romania is really had average sentences 37,488 longer than Canada?

Posted on 04 May 2014

Anonym

Anonym

0

Thank you, Ian Graham for your statistics which whilst interesting, no one requested. Why don't you actually explain as staff editor what on earth are the units of this currently meaningless data as everyone else has actually wants to know

Posted on 02 Jul 2010

Patrick Jones

Patrick Jones

Follow us on Facebook to get interesting stats:

Adblocker detected! Please consider reading this notice.

We've detected that you are using AdBlock Plus or some other adblocking software which is preventing the page from fully loading.

We don't have any banner, Flash, animation, obnoxious sound, or popup ad. We do not implement these annoying types of ads!

We need money to operate the site, and almost all of it comes from our online advertising.

Please add www.nationmaster.com to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software.

×