They have murdered, cheated, robbed or raped: almost 9,500 people are in Bavarian prisons. There would still be cells free - but they are intentionally empty.

Munich (dpa/lby) - There is still room in Bavaria's prisons: According to the latest data from the end of October, 9,427 of a total of 12,075 prison places were occupied in the prisons (JVA) in the Free State. Most of the detainees were serving a sentence, as the Bavarian Ministry of Justice in Munich announced at the request of the German Press Agency. Among the 6,430 people affected were 437 women, 54 minors and 43 people who were in preventive detention after serving their actual sentence because of the seriousness of their crime. Another 2,685 people were in custody as of the reporting date, and 176 men and women were in custody pending deportation.

The average occupancy of the 36 Bavarian prisons and 6 youth detention centers is determined annually and was not yet available for 2022. In 2021 there were 9,600 prisoners and preventive detainees - although the ministry pointed out that the lower occupancy figures in 2021 and 2022 were not representative. Because of the corona pandemic, measures have been taken to, among other things, reduce the number of new arrivals and thus create space for quarantine measures. "It was the goal to have free capacities in the prisons."

Most of the inmates (1633) were most recently imprisoned for criminal offenses against people (except in road traffic), meaning physical injury, manslaughter and murder. Theft and embezzlement also put many (1022) behind bars, followed by other property crimes (672). Almost 600 were jailed for sexual assault and rape.

As of October 31, 43 people were in preventive detention - all of them men. At the end of March there were still 47 people. As a result, this number continued to fall in a long-term comparison. The highest level in recent years was in March 2010 with 73 persons in preventive detention.