Albanian parliament has today approved an amnesty, ordering 175 convicts to be released.
The decision will benefit prisoners who had received a final decision on their case by December 31, 2019.
Some 150 men, 23 women, and two minors will now be freed while a further 29 women will have their sentence reduced by one third.
The amnesty should have been approved by December 2019 to allow those who benefited to spend the holidays with their families. But even though the bill and all the necessary documents had been prepared, it was not included in the December calendar for the Assembly.
Amnesties apply mainly to women, juveniles and the elderly, who have not committed serious crimes.
In this case, the number of men who have benefited is 7 times higher than that of women. The last time the government extended an amnesty was in 2016. At the time, 650 prisoners were amnestied, with only 15 being women.
However, considering that only 109 of the 5,316 prisoners in 2018 were women, and the approximate women to men ratio in Albanian prisons was 1/48, the 1/7 ratio of the recent amnesty seems to have benefited women mostly.
