It is difficult to determine how many people end up in prison each year because of EFS. Prisoner statistics are collected annually on a reference date and suggest for 2017 that approximately 11% of prisoners in Germany were serving an EFS. The share of EFS among total prison terms has steadily increased over the last 15 years. However, since EFS often last only a few weeks to months, many prisoners are not included in the cut-off date statistics, so that a much higher total number must be assumed. Exact figures are apparently no longer collected at all (cf. Thurm 2016).
