Europe’s Most Heavily Policed Countries

According to Eurostat, as a three-year average (2018-2020), there was one police officer per 300 inhabitants in the EU, with noticeable differences between member states.

As the following infographic shows, Montenegro had the highest density of law enforcement personnel in 2020 with 731 per 100,000 inhabitants. Finland was at the opposite end of the scale with 136 police officers per 100,000 inhabitants. Elsewhere, Italy had 398, Spain had 370 and Germany had 301 per 100,000 people. Turkey has seen the greatest bolstering of forces in recent years, rising from 464 police officers per 100,000 in 2015 to 561 personnel in 2020 - an increase of 21 percent.

Eurostat analysts note that one reason for the difference could be that the definitions of the roles a police officer carries out could change between countries.