Around 30 inmates sentenced in Sweden for serious crimes are preparing to serve their sentences in Estonia, hundreds of miles from where they were tried. They are the first group, to be transferred this month, under an agreement that will allow Swedish authorities to send up to 600 prisoners to the Baltic country.

“It’s historic,” said Sweden’s prime minister, conservative Ulf Kristersson, after the pact was signed last year. The deal has attracted interest from other European countries seeking solutions to overcrowded prison systems, but it has also sparked a wave of criticism from academics and civil society groups and triggered protests in Tartu, the small Estonian city that will host the inmates.

Prison occupancy in Sweden is at record highs. The expansion of organized crime and the adoption of tougher measures have meant that the incarcerated population nearly doubled between 2015 and 2025 (reaching 11,232 inmates), according to the Council of Europe. The rise in high-impact crimes has also led to longer sentences and, ultimately, more overcrowded prisons. Faced with the crisis, the Swedish government has insisted the agreement is urgent to relieve the “tremendous pressure” on the penitentiary system.

In Estonia, by contrast, almost half of the available cells stand empty amid the EU’s second-lowest prison occupancy rate (around 58%). After suffering a crime wave in the 1990s, the Baltic country has achieved a sustained reduction in crime and adopted a less punitive penal model. Earlier this year, it hit record lows with just 1,618 inmates, the fewest since it gained independence from the USSR in 1991.

The agreement runs for five years and allows Sweden to send up to 300 inmates in exchange for an annual payment of €30.6 million ($35.42 million). Estonia can receive another 300 prisoners, but in that case Swedish authorities would have to pay €8,500 ($9,900) for each additional inmate they decide to send. Overall, the Swedish government has acknowledged it is cheaper to send prisoners abroad than to house them in its own jails, which cost about €11,000 ($12,800) per inmate. Estonia sees it as a way to maintain its penitentiary infrastructure and to generate revenue and jobs.

Beyond supply and demand

Both countries say they benefit. But that transactional logic worries Timothy Anderson, a professor of international relations at the University of Tallinn in Estonia’s capital. The academic says the pact could lead to a kind of “commodification of prisoners,” treating them as products moved from one warehouse to another. “It is justified on pragmatic grounds and often without regard for prisoners’ well-being,” he says by phone. “It feels like an extra punishment, not just for me but for my children too,” one of the inmates to be transferred told the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

Sweden and Estonia have no prior experience with a similar agreement, but there are precedents elsewhere in Europe. Belgium was the first country in the EU to try something similar to tackle prison overcrowding, arranging in 2010 to send 500 inmates to the Netherlands. The payment was also around €30 million a year but rose above €40 million ($46.7 million) when more prisoners were included than originally planned.

Five years later, Norway followed suit and sealed an agreement with the Dutch government to reduce waiting times for inmates to begin serving sentences. The Scandinavian country ended up exporting 650 prisoners over the three years the pact lasted, paying roughly €95 million ($110 million) in total.

In both countries, prisoners’ relatives protested, citing violations of their rights and difficulties visiting. In Belgium, the official narrative changed radically over time. At first the deal was seen as “indispensable,” but later it was regarded as unsustainable and too costly, and it was suspended in 2016. Two years later Norway chose not to renew the rental of cells, although authorities argued the measure had met its objective.

A study published in 2023 in the Nordic Journal of Criminology found that the experiences of Belgium and Norway were, at best, “a short-term fix” and had no effect on addressing the root causes: laws and government policies that overflow prisons.

Despite the doubts of experts, Denmark struck a deal with Kosovo in 2021 to rent 300 prison places for 10 years for an annual payment of €21 million ($24.5 million). Transfers are expected to begin next year after multiple extensions prompted by political resistance in Kosovo’s parliament, criticism from international bodies, and technical issues that delayed the project. Once operational, prisoners’ relatives will have to travel over 1,200 miles to visit them.

The resurgence of this idea on the continent is not isolated. Anderson says the growing popularity of these measures cannot be understood without taking into account the hardening of migration policies, including proposals to open deportation centers outside the EU, under an externalization logic. Europe has long paid others to take charge of migrants and refugees; it now seeks someone else to care for its prisoners. “What was controversial 20 years ago is no longer so much so,” he notes.

A controversial experiment

All prisoners to be sent from Sweden are men. The agreement excludes women, minors, heads of criminal groups and prisoners deemed radicalized or accused of terrorism, but it does include inmates convicted of homicide, violent robbery, fraud and serious financial crimes. Estonia also reserves the right to veto offenders it considers too dangerous. Prisoners may be Swedish or foreign, unlike the Denmark–Kosovo case, which covers only foreigners.

The agreement stipulates that each inmate is entitled to at least a bed, a chair, a table, a radio, a television, an alarm clock, a cup, a mirror, a wardrobe or shelf and a device to regulate natural light entering the cell. To overcome language barriers, communications between prisoners and guards will be in English.

As has happened in other countries, one of the most contentious issues is whether prisoners will have contact with their families. Inmates are guaranteed one visit per month lasting one to two hours and one longer visit of one to three days every six months inside the penitentiary facility. But a key unknown is whether relatives will have the means to travel to Estonia.

“In reality, visitors come to see one in five prisoners and, in general, it is a grieving mother,” Estonia’s justice minister, Liisa Pakosta, recently said in response to criticism. “We have a very modern prison where inmates will have tablets and can make video calls,” she added.

“What worries us most is the impact on the people who will be sent to Estonia,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the Swedish organization Civil Rights Defenders, which has voiced concerns about potential human rights violations. Stauffer says uprooting prisoners from the context they know reduces their chances of reintegrating into society. “It also affects their families and, above all, their children,” he adds in a phone interview.

“Rehabilitation and reintegration had been pillars of our penitentiary system; now it is clear we are moving away [from those principles],” he laments. The agreement sets out protocols for deaths, suicides, and escapes, but Stauffer points out that gaps remain over the responsibilities and accountability each country will assume.

The pact has not been free of controversy in Estonia either. While in Sweden it reinforces the conservative government’s punitive shift, in the Baltic country the agreement has struck nationalist nerves, especially among right and far-right parties.

“The Swedes gave us meatballs and Pippi [Longstocking], but they should keep their trash,” Sandra Laur of the opposition Isamaa (Fatherland) party declared during a June protest in Tartu that drew only a few dozen people. Nevertheless, 54% of Estonians oppose the agreement with Sweden, according to a poll by the public broadcaster ERR. The opposition has also warned it will repeal the penitentiary pact if it wins the general election next March.

“For Tartu, the most important thing is safety,” says Urmas Klaas, mayor of Estonia’s second-largest city, which has about 100,000 inhabitants, by email. Klaas says they have received guarantees from the national government to ensure there will be no risks to the community and that 250 prison staff will be recruited as a result of the agreement, creating a positive impact on the local labor market and economy.

Anderson says Estonia is a unique case of how a country can use its prisons as an economic and diplomatic tool, projecting itself as a state that has successfully transitioned from the USSR to the EU and built efficient institutions to the point it can take responsibility for other countries’ prisoners. “It’s a kind of marketing,” he says.

France and the Netherlands have considered sending their prisoners abroad. The United Kingdom explored the idea as well, though plans stalled amid criticism and high estimated costs. The hard-right Reform UK party recently renewed calls to consider sending foreign prisoners to El Salvador, Lithuania, or Estonia.

Finland even showed interest last year in signing an agreement with Estonia, and Belgian media reported in February that its government was considering a penitentiary pact with the Baltic country. Estonian authorities denied any contact and stressed that, for now, they will not seek agreements with additional countries. The EU has avoided taking a position on these cases, saying each member state has the final say in managing prison overcrowding.

“I would not be surprised if more agreements like this are signed in the coming years,” Anderson says, despite the caution shown by the Estonian government. The researcher argues this case “sets an important precedent” and could pave the way for similar deals elsewhere in Europe. Authorities expect about 200 inmates to have arrived from Sweden by the end of 2026 and the Tartu prison to reach its quota of 600 by next year.