The second meeting of the Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics (SPACE) national correspondents was held in Strasbourg on 14 September 2026.
Co-organised by the Council of Europe’s Council for Penological Co-operation (PC-CP) and the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), the meeting was an opportunity to bring together the officials responsible for the collection and submission of the data featured in the annual SPACE statistics and to collaboratively reflect on ways to improve data quality and on the future of SPACE.
Opening the meeting Hugh Chetwynd, Head of the Department on Deprivation of Liberty of the Council of Europe, reiterated the importance of SPACE as a comprehensive source of comparative information and data used world-wide, as well as its key role in enabling public authorities to make informed policy decisions in the penal field. The challenge he set the group was how to ensure that the key indicators could be published sooner and to iron out the glitches in the data collection process.
Participants exchanged national practices on the definition and classification of prison admissions and prisoners and explored ways to address data gaps and improve data related to foreign nationals in prison and on probation as well as the age profile of prison and probation populations. They discussed how to further improve the quality and timeliness of the data collected across Europe and worked on practical solutions to harmonise reporting. The meeting concluded with agreed new indicators and changes to future questionnaires, as well as action points and follow-up priorities aimed at making SPACE statistics more accurate, comparable and responsive to emerging policy and research needs.
The meeting was led by Louise Riondel, Secretary to the PC-CP, together with Professor Marcelo Aebi and his team (Edoardo Cocco and Ignacio Cid Pozo) from the School of Criminal Sciences of the University of Lausanne, which is responsible for producing SPACE each year.
70 national representatives from 42 member States attended the meeting which was held in hybrid format. Jorge Monteiro, President of the PC-CP, also participated in the work of the group.
Data related to prisons (SPACE I) are collected since 1983 and data related to non‑custodial sanctions and measures (SPACE II) are collected since 1992. The data are provided by an extensive network of national correspondents working in the prison and probation services of the 46 Council of Europe member States, and subsequently collected, verified and analysed for the Council of Europe by the SPACE team from the University of Lausanne.
The SPACE national correspondents had last met in November 2013.
