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Romania Insider news from 2017:

The law allowing inmates serving time in bad prison conditions to get six days cut off from their sentence for every 30 days in prison was promulgated by President Klaus Iohannis on Friday, July 14.

Romania’s opposition parties challenged the draft law at the Constitutional Court, but the judges decided that the bill is constitutional.

The Chamber of Deputies approved the draft law at the beginning of May.

The initial version of the bill, which was sent by the Government, provided that detainees kept in inhuman conditions will see a three-day reduction in their sentence for every 30 days. However, the Chamber of Deputies’ legal committee amended the law to a six-day reduction.

Inhuman conditions refer to improper sanitary conditions, such as the presence of bugs, mice and fleas, serving bad meals, the lack of hot water, no outdoor activities or the lack of access to natural light.

Do similar laws exist in other countries, i.e. automatic reductions in sentences for bad prison conditions? (Getting reduced sentences for authoring books was surely more original.)

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    Why would they make a law to reduce sentences based on prison conditions instead of a law to improve those conditions in the first place?
    – Joe W
    Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 19:43
  • @JoeW: I have no idea. That's probably a good question in itself.
    – 264 champagne bottles on ice
    Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 19:47
  • @JoeW: I suppose that letting more people out of prisons is one way to reduce overcrowding (at little direct budgetary cost), although that might not automatically fix other issues with the prison-life quality.
    – 264 champagne bottles on ice
    Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 20:00
  • I agree with the over crowding part but what you posted doesn't seem to cover that. And as for the over crowding part I know other countries do that but since that does not seem to be covered as part of this question I did not provide it as an answer.
    – Joe W
    Commented Nov 18, 2019 at 20:13
  • @Fizz - Ref. "getting reduced sentences for authoring books was surely more original". Well, some argued about the "original democracy" (in the sense of like nobody has seen before) that happens in Romania a long time ago. This is clearly an ongoing process.
    – Alexei
    Commented Nov 30, 2019 at 19:13

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In Germany, there are two factors at work:

  • Prosecutors, judges, and parole boards have some discretion if they send or keep a suspect or convict in prison. While they are supposed to look only at the particulars of the case, overcrowding and a high workload might let them dismiss cases that would otherwise lead to prison sentences.
  • When suspects are tried in a German courts for actions which have been partially tried and sentenced abroad, and if a prison term has been served, each day of prison abroad may count for more than one day of German prison. (Judges will first determined if there is any case and jurisdiction left, then what the total sentence would have been under German law, then if the foreign conditions were a special hardship.)
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