On 24 April 2015, in terms of FactCheck’s

Check Your Fact service, our reader, Iago Akhobadze, asked us to verify the accuracy of a statement made by the former Prime Minister of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Mr Ivanishvili stated: "To clarify exactly how ‘well’ we manage to control the government, it would be enough to analyse the deeds of Saakashvili’s government – prisons full of people and 300,000 probationers."

At the request of the reader, FactCheck

looked into the number of probationers in Georgia from 2004 to 2012.

The term "probationer" is a non-legal term as it cannot be found in any law or legal normative act. According to the information of the National Probation Agency of Georgia, the term is used to describe those individuals with suspended sentences or parolees.

A suspended sentence is given in cases strictly determined by the law. In terms of a suspended sentence, the court is authorised to impose additional obligations upon an individual (for example, not to change a living address without the permission of the National Probation Agency, not to visit a certain location, to undergo treatment and so on). It is also possible to allocate a probationary period during which time an individual must not commit another crime and fulfil all of the imposed obligations. The National Probation Agency is responsible for the control of the actions of individuals with suspended sentences.

An individual who is convicted of a crime can be paroled if the court (or in special cases a local council of the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance of Georgia) believes that it is no longer necessary for him to serve out the full sentence.

Hence, both the suspended sentence and parole are types of conditional punishment. As pointed out earlier, the term probationer includes those individuals who were given the aforementioned sentences.

We addressed the National Probation Agency in order to find out the number of probationers in Georgia from 2004 to 2012. The statistics provided by the Agency are not entirely accurate because, as they explained, the data might include individuals who were considered as probationers in the previous year as well. Despite this, FactCheck

analysed the information provided by the Agency.

Year	Individuals with Suspended Sentences	Parolees
2004	6,277	1,197
2005	7,827	1,212
2006	9,558	558
2007	16,073	245
2008	21,387	499
2009	26,628	409
2010	31,986	186
2011	38,681	136
2012	33,109	604
Overall	191,526	5,046

Even if we assume that the statistics of each year do not include the probationers of the previous year, the overall number does not reach 300,000. In this case, we have a total of 119,736 individuals with suspended sentences and 5,046 parolees in Georgia.

As pointed out earlier, even these numbers are exaggerated as the data of certain years also include individuals who were probationers for several years in a row. For example, if an individual were given a suspended sentence of five years in 2005, he would be included in the statistics of 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 as well. Hence, there could have been approximately 124,782 probationers in Georgia from 2004 to 2012; however, it is highly likely that the actual number is much smaller.

In order to assess the number of probationers in Georgia, it is important to compare these numbers with the similar statistics of other countries. The Council of Europe publishes its statistics

of court sentences annually where it compares the statistics of its member states. According to these data, Georgia held the first place by the number of probationers per 100,000 people in 2011.

No.	Country	Number of Probationers	Per 100,000 People
1	Georgia	38,692	865.73
2	Poland	244,091	633.51
3	Turkey	400,494	543.24
4	Estonia	7,235	539.84
5	Belgium	40,606	369.14
6	UK (Wales)	162,674	289.61
7	Luxembourg	1,463	285.85
8	France	184,284	283.76
9	UK (Ireland)	4,273	236.48
10	Lithuania	7,136	233.77

It is interesting to see how the number of probationers in Georgia changed after 2012.

Year	Individuals with Suspended Sentences	Parolees
2013	11,445	474
2014	15,361	356

The number of probationers decreased significantly in 2013 and 2014. If we compare the data for Georgia in 2013 with that of the others,

an improvement is easy to see here as well.

No.	Country	Number of Probationers	Per 100,000 People
1	Turkey	965,234	1,276.3
2	Latvia	17,383	858.92
3	Poland	208,139	540.15
4	Estonia	6,409	485.47
5	Hungary	38,195	385.47
6	Belgium	39,483	353.74
7	UK (Scotland)	17,147	321.85
8	France	187,056	285.24
9	Moldova	9,963	279.9
10	Lithuania	8,297	279.18
11	UK (Wales)	150,469	264.22
12	Netherlands	43,010	256.32
13	Georgia	11,445	255.65
14	Luxembourg	1,339	249.33
15	Portugal	25,911	247.07

Georgia held the 13^th

place among the European countries in 2013. The number of probationers per 100,000 people decreased from 865.73 to 255.65.

Conclusion

According to the data received from the National Probation Agency, there were a total of 124,782 probationers in Georgia from 2004 to 2012. The received data are somewhat exaggerated as the data of certain years also include those individuals who were probationers for several years in a row. In any case, the number of probationers in Georgia from 2004 to 2012 did not reach 300,000 people as stated by Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Despite this, according to the annual statistics of court sentences of the Council of Europe, Georgia held the first place in Europe by the number of probationers per 100,000 people. The number of probationers has decreased significantly since the 2012 Parliamentary elections. Georgia moved from the first to the 13^th

place in Europe.

FactCheck concludes that Bidzina Ivanishvili’s statement, saying that there were a total of 300,000 probationers in Georgia from 2004 to 2012, is HALF TRUE.