Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 29
By Farhad Daneshvar – Trend:
Iranian officials over the past several years have continuously warned against growing number of inmates in the country.
It appears that this growing number, in addition to social consequences, has had economic implications on the country, which still suffers from deep depression.
Calling for adopting policies aimed at dealing with the growing crime rate in the country, Iran's Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi last year said that 296 individuals out of per 100,000 Iranians were serving prison sentences.
Aliasghar Jahangir, the head of Iranian organization in charge of running prisons, in an early June interview brought more clarity to the issue saying 220,000 inmates were kept in the country’s prisons.
A group of Iranian observers suggest that the sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic over the past decade have had a devastating impact on the country’s economy, which played a key role in increase in the crime rate.
According to Iranian media outlets, keeping one inmate in the country’s prisons for one year in average costs $5,600.
Taking into account that over 220,000 inmates are kept in prisons in Iran, the government annually spends $1.2 billion on inmates, which means keeping inmates in prisons puts the government to a lot of expenses.
For comparison, Iranian government spends $623 per year on one school student.
It seems that Iranian judiciary officials need to draw up new plans to deal with the vast and unnecessary expenses of imprisoning individuals on minor crimes.