How many people are imprisoned in Sweden?

Sweden's prison population is 9,748 people. This figure aggregates all forms of detention counted by the source: sentenced prisoners, pre-trial detainees, and administrative detentions.

What is the incarceration rate in Sweden?

Sweden's incarceration rate is approximately 92 people per 100,000 population.

How many prisons are there in Sweden?

World Prisons indexes 90 individual facilities in Sweden. Each entry links to a detail page with contact information, capacity, oversight reports, and known conditions.

All countries

Europe · Northern Europe

Sweden

Q: Does Sweden have the death penalty?

Sweden's death-penalty status is: abolitionist. Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

High confidence

Verified 20 May 2026 · Data dated 31 Jan 2024

Fresh · 2mo ago

Population rising rapidly since 2020 reversing two decades of decline. Government commissioned major expansion programme.

Compare Sweden World Prison Brief page

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

Prison population

9,748

Year: 2024

Rate per 100,000

Per 100,000 residents

Occupancy

104.9%

Above design capacity

Pre-trial / remand

28.3%

Share not yet sentenced

Female prisoners

6.8%

Foreign nationals

16.7%

Figures from official sources · verified 20 May 2026 · methodology

Conditions risk — across 90 facilities

Average of our computed Conditions Risk Score across the country's facilities. Methodology · Browse highest-risk

—

national average

90 unknown

abolitionist on capital punishment since 1972. Last known execution: 1910.ICCPR-OP2 (death-penalty abolition protocol): signatory

Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

Source: Amnesty International + Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide.

31 documented human-rights cases →

How Sweden compares

vs Europe (16) & global averages

Rate per 100,000this: 92 · region: 109 · global: 214

Occupancy ratethis: 105% · region: 96% · global: 125%

Pre-trial sharethis: 28% · region: 28% · global: 32%

The vertical ticks mark the global (grey) and regional (amber) means. Bars are clipped at the high end for readability.

Prison population over time

Annual figures, latest survey year

2000: 5,326+110.9% over 25y2025: 11,232

Source: World Prison Brief / unodc / Council of Europe SPACE I

Reform in Sweden

All reform →

Laws, programmes, and pilots changing how Sweden incarcerates — plus relevant research.

Closing all women's prisons (proposed)2014–2019
decarceration · stalled
In 2014 the Swedish Prison and Probation Service openly considered phasing out women's prisons entirely on the grounds that the population was too small and too low-risk to justify a separate carceral infrastructure.

Held

—

Anstalten Gruvberget

Sweden

Type

—

Capacity

—

Held

—

Anstalten Gruvberget

Sweden

Type

Prison

Capacity

—

Held

—

Anstalten Hällby

Sweden

Type

Prison

Capacity

—

Held

—

Anstalten Halmstad

Sweden · Halmstad

Type

Prison

Capacity

—

Held

—

Anstalten Haparanda

Sweden · Haparanda

Type

Prison

Capacity

—

Held

—

Sweden · Karlskoga

Type

—

Capacity

Held

—

Anstalten Kolmården

Sweden · Norrköping

Type

Prison

Capacity

127

Held

—

See all 90 prisons in Sweden →

Data completeness

100%

Score based on how many fields are populated. We surface this so you know where the gaps are.

National population: 10,550,0002024
Source-verified: 20 May 2026
Source links: 2 cited

Sources

Direct citations for the figures on this page.

Primary reference
World Prison Brief (ICPS, Birkbeck) — Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research
Council of Europe â SPACE statistics — Council of Europe
See /data-sources for our methodology.

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: SWE

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA

World Prisons. (2026). Sweden — prison statistics. Retrieved July 20, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/countries/sweden

Chicago

"Sweden — prison statistics." World Prisons. Accessed July 20, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/countries/sweden.

BibTeX

@misc{worldprisons-sweden,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Sweden — prison statistics},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/countries/sweden},
  urldate = {2026-07-20}
}