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11. Breaches of discipline and punishments awarded (Table 34)
11.1 There were 20,941 breaches of discipline in 1998. The most common breaches were ‘disobeying a lawful order’ (23 per cent of all breaches), ‘administering, or allowing to be administered, a controlled drug to himself’ (18 per cent), ‘intentionally refusing to work or failing to work properly’ (10 per cent) and ‘possession of an unauthorised article or quantity of an article’ (9 per cent). In response to these breaches, 31,286 punishments were awarded. The most commonly awarded punishments were forfeiture of privileges (33 per cent of all punishments), stoppage or deduction from earnings (31 per cent) and award of additional days (23 per cent).
12. International comparisons of prison population (Table 35)
12.1 Undertaking comparisons of the prison population in different jurisdictions is complex and the results should be treated with caution due to the different justice systems and recording rules in operation. Table 35 provides basic information on total prison population, prison population expressed as a rate per 100,000 of the general population and percentage change between 1997 and 1998.
12.2 In Scotland there were 118 prisoners for every 100,000 members of the general population in 1998. The rate varied greatly between the jurisdictions considered; from 690 per 100,000 population in Russia and 668 in USA to 89 in France, 60 in Sweden and 42 in Japan.
12.3 Of the twenty-seven jurisdictions listed in Table 35, 17 experienced increases in their prison population between 1997 and 1998. The increases ranged from 1 per cent in Portugal and Sweden to 28 per cent in Greece. The largest decrease, -8 per cent, was in Belgium.
Chart 7 Prison population as at 1 September 1998 per 100,000 population
Chart 8 Percentage change in prison population 1997 — 1998
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