By Marcelo F. Aebi, Léa Berger-Kolopp, Christine Burkhardt, Mélanie M. Tiago

How many inmates are held in European prisons? Among them, how many are women? How many are foreign citizens? How many are not serving a final sentence? How many people enter prison every year, and how long do they remain there? Are there enough places for all of them? What is the ratio of inmates per member of prison staff? How much do prisons cost? If you are looking for the data necessary to provide answers to these and many other similar questions, this is the book for you. The Sourcebook of prison statistics compiles absolute numbers for 30 prison-related measures and computes another 30 indicators which can be used for comparative purposes. The sourcebook should be used together with Volume 1 of the Prisons in Europe 2005-2015 collection, which provides the context and methodology used to produce the data presented here. 

Strasburg: Council of Europe, 2019. 217p

By  Marcelo F. Aebi Léa Berger-Kolopp Christine Burkhardt Mélanie M. Tiago;  The European Union and the Council of Europe

  Country-based information on penal institutions and prison populations was collected through questionnaires sent to the prison administrations of the member states of the Council of Europe. The information collected was analysed by the authors of the study. This publication is divided into four parts across two volumes. Parts 1 to 3 are presented in this volume. Part 4 (volume 2) presents the data received from the prison administrations of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, as well as the rates, ratios and percentages computed by the authors of this study, which were used to produce the figures included in the present volume. 

Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2019. 366p.

By John H. Langbein

In Torture and the Law of Proof John H. Langbein explores the world of the thumbscrew and the rack, engines of torture authorized for investigating crime in European legal systems from medieval times until well into the eighteenth century. Drawing on juristic literature and legal records, Langbein's book, first published in 1977, remains the definitive account of how European legal systems became dependent on the use of torture in their routine criminal procedures, and how they eventually worked themselves free of it.

The book has recently taken on an eerie relevance as a consequence of controversial American and British interrogation practices in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In a new introduction, Langbein contrasts the "new" law of torture with the older European law and offers some pointed lessons about the difficulty of reconciling coercion with accurate investigation. Embellished with fascinating illustrations of torture devices taken from an eighteenth-century criminal code, this crisply written account will engage all those interested in torture's remarkable grip on European legal history.

Chicago. he University of Chicago Press. 1976. 230p.