Denmark to rent from Kosovo 300 prison cells

Denmark’s Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup announced that the country will be short of up to 1,000 places in the prison estate by 2025. To avoid the overcrowding, Denmark plans to rent from Kosovo prison cells for 300 inmates.

The rented prison cells for 300 inmates who will be expelled at the end of their sentences became the forced measure for the interior ministry, the Danish government said Wednesday.

In 2020, some 350 inmates were due to be deported at the end of their sentences. To ease prison overcrowding, Denmark’s prison estate expanded by 326 places between 2022 and 2025, the Danish justice ministry said in a statement.

According to the recent statistics, Denmark’s prison population has grown 19 percent since 2015, reaching more than 4,000 inmates at the start of 2021.

“With the agreement, it is agreed to rent 300 prison places in Kosovo and expand the prison capacity in Denmark by several hundred places,” the statement reads.

Meantime, Kosovo had 1,642 prisoners as of 2020, 97 percent of capacity, the University of London’s World Prison Brief reports.

Denmark’s decision to rent the prison cells from Kosovo is not a brand-new idea for the EU nations. Previously Norway and Belgium have rented prison cells in the Netherlands.