Presentations

CURRENT SITUATION OF PRISON OVERCROWDING

1.

It is estimated that there are more than 10 million prisoners in the world and that each year
perhaps 30 million people enter prison establishments. Despite a number of international
treaties and instruments which should protect the rights of prisoners, such rights are routinelyviolated. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture told the General Assembly last year that inmany countries of the world, places of detention are constantly overcrowded, ﬁlthy and lack theminimum facilities necessary to allow for a digniﬁed existence. Moreover, tuberculosis and otherhighly contagious diseases are rife. Inter-prisoner hierarchies and violence are common featuresof many places of detention, and the guards often delegate their authority and responsibility toprotect detainees against discrimination, exploitation and violence to privileged detainees who, inturn, use this power to their own beneﬁt.

2.

Overcrowding is the most important reason for the failure of states to meet minimum standardsof decency and humanity. The aim of this paper is to describe briefly what we know about thestate of overcrowding around the world, before my colleagues go on to discuss causes and countermeasures.

3.

It is important to try to agree what we mean by overcrowding. It is relatively easy to recognise it
when we see it - situations where there is not enough room for prisoners to sleep; not the facilities
to provide sufficient food, health care or any form of constructive activities; insufficient staff toensure that prisoners are safe; the lack of accommodation to hold separately types of prisoners
who should be kept apart - women from men, juveniles from adults; untried from convicted; orlack of capacity to receive any more numbers so that emergency measures have to be taken - inthe form of amnesties, emergency accommodation or the holding of prisoners in police stations.

4.

If we think about these dimensions we realise that the problem of overcrowding exists in all sorts
of prison systems in rich and poor countries, common and civil law jurisdictions, and different
types of polity. In the UK emergency measures were introduced in 2007 and are still in place
to release prisoners 18 days early in order to free up space; in France last year violent protests
erupted when guards started industrial action against overcrowding. In California federal judges
have ruled that overcrowding is the chief impediment to adequate healthcare and ordered acap on the number of prisoners at two thirds of the existing level. In South America the Inter
American Court has issued mandates relating to overcrowding and the associated life threatening
problems here in Brazil (Urso Branco) and in Argentina (Mendoza). In some of the poorest
countries, particularly in Africa, congestion can lead to suﬀocation and death. Examples aboundof overcrowding leading to riots and mutinies, violence and corruption, damage to physical andmental health not just of prisoners but of staff as well. Overcrowding is not limited to adultprisoners. The Special Rapporteur found that far too many of the children whom he met on hisvisits are held in severely overcrowded cells, under deplorable sanitary and hygienic conditions.

5.

It is possible to illustrate the current situation of overcrowding with reference to disturbing
descriptions of human misery from every continent. But it is important to go beyond specificexamples to build an accurate picture of the extent and nature of the problem globally.

6.

There is not however a straightforward way of measuring overcrowding because there is nouniversal agreement about how much space prisoners should have or the facilities to which theyshould have access. International standards state that each prisoner must have enough space,although deﬁnitions of adequacy vary from country to country and depend among other factors on39

how much time prisoners spend in their cells. The UN Standard Minimum Rules do say that allcells and dormitories must have adequate heating, lighting and ventilation and that every detaineeor prisoner should have his own bed or mattress with clean bedding. But in the absence of abinding convention on prisonersʼ rights, we are short of comprehensive baseline information.
7.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has recommended minimum standards inrespect of these dimensions e.g. minimum space per prisoner of no less than 3.4 sq m1 and area
within the security perimeter of 20-30sq m per person. Minimum rates of air renewal and intensityof light have also been speciﬁed.2 But there is no systematic data available to assess whether theseobjective standards are being met or to enable comparisons to be made. There is even less data
about how prisoners perceive overcrowding. As the UN Rapporteur has said If cells are severely
overcrowded, not much privacy is left for individual detainees within the cells. But we know
little about how prisoners experience overcrowding.

8.

The ICPS World Prison Brief includes details of the occupancy levels in the prison systems of
191 countries. It does this by showing the oﬃcial (uncrowded) capacity of the prison system andpresenting the prison population total as a percentage of the capacity ﬁgure. This percentage isthe occupancy rate and it demonstrates whether a prison system holds more prisoners than it isintended to hold and, if so, by how much.

9.

The occupancy level is not the same thing as the level of overcrowding. But, it is perhaps the bestproxy measure of overcrowding that is available in the absence of detailed information about theamount of space that each prisoner has in their living accommodation.

10. There are some important caveats about this measure. First a system as a whole may have fewer
prisoners than it is intended to hold but individual prisons or parts of prisons may be overcrowded- sometimes severely so. For example Argentina and Russia report less than 100% occupancy but
it is well known that there is gross overcrowding in some penal institutions in those countries.
In a recent case at the European Court of Human Rights detention in a Russian remand centreprovided from 0.5 to 0.6 square metres of ﬂoor space per person. (Andreyevskiy v.Russia 2009).
In a similar vein, while Cameroonʼs total occupancy level may be 138 %, New Bell Prison in
Douala had four times the number of prisoners it was designed for when ICPS visited in 2008.
11. A total occupancy level in a large country may serve to mask sizeable variations between regions
or types of institution. The overall US occupancy level of 110% comprises 95% in local jails, 116%in state prisons and 162% in federal prisons. There is likely to be considerable variation too withineach category of prison - Californiaʼs prison population is about double capacity.
12. In most systems there tends to be more overcrowding among pre trial prisoners than among
sentenced prisoners. Indeed the requirement to keep pre trial detainees apart from sentenced
prisoners can lead to gross discrepancies in living space within one institution.
13. The second caveat is that countries can decide and sometimes change the designated capacity of aprison. By moving a bunk bed into a cell the capacity doubles and 100% overcrowding disappears!
So it is possible for each prison in a prison system to hold fewer prisoners than its oﬃcial capacity,and for the prison systemʼs overall occupancy rate thus to be below 100%, but nonetheless forthe prison system to be overcrowded. This occurs when the oﬃcial capacity of the system is set
at a level that allows so little space per prisoner in the living accommodation that the prisons are
overcrowded despite the fact that they hold no more prisoners than the official capacity. Since
the official capacity of each prison system is set according to criteria decided by the country

1240Standards are higher in Europe
Nembrini, G. P. (2005)
Red Cross. Geneva: International Committee of theconcerned, it follows that those international comparisons of occupancy levels are far fromprecise.
14. Despite these warnings, prison systems that have occupancy rates exceeding 100% will (almostcertainly) have overcrowding in the system and the higher the rate the more likely that theovercrowding is of a serious nature. What does our data show?
15. First that in 60% of countries (114 out of 191) the prison system holds more prisoners than it isintended to hold. The official capacity is exceeded in 72% (28/39) of African countries on which
information is available, 70% (32/46) of countries in the Americas, 56% (9/16) of countries inOceania, 68% (17/25) of Asian countries and 44% (25/57) of countries in Europe.
16. Second in 41 countries (21%) the occupancy rate exceeds 150%, meaning that the prison system
is more than 50% overcrowded. The extent of overcrowding is greatest in African prison systems.
The occupancy rate is over 150% in 41% (16/39). A similar level of severe overcrowding is present
in 19% (3/16) of the countries in Oceania on which information is available, in 28% (7/25) of Asiancountries, in 28% (13/46) of countries in the Americas and 2% (1/57) of European countries.
17. Third, in 16 of the 191 countries (8%) the occupancy rate exceeds 200%, meaning that there areat least two prisoners accommodated in the space intended for one. Nine of these countries are inAfrica (Benin, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia), two inAsia (Bangladesh and Pakistan), four in the Americas (Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti and St Vincentand the Grenadines) and one in Oceania (French Polynesia).
18. The table below summarises prison occupancy rates by continent.
Under 100%Africa
Americas
Asia
EuropeOceania
Total

1114832772(39%)100% but under
120%
48416
436(20%)120% but under
150%
81168235(19%)

150% but under
200%
7951224(13%)

200% and overTotal

9420116(9%)

39462557
16183(100%)

19. As a way of leading to further considerations of causes and countermeasures, I would conclude
by pointing out that our data suggests two important elements of the problem. First the countries
that have the highest rates of over-occupancy do not tend to have particularly high rates ofimprisonment per head of population. Of the 14 most overcrowded countries where detailed
comparison is possible, it is only El Salvador whose prison population rate exceeds 150 per
100,000. By contrast several have relatively low rates of imprisonment.
20. This might suggest that the way to address the problem is to build more prison capacity. But theother interesting finding is that the most overcrowded countries generally have high rates of pretrial detention. Of the 16 most overcrowded systems, 7 have prison populations of which morethan half are waiting for trial and it is more than 35% in a further four.
21. The table below shows the prison population rate and percentage of pre-trial detainees in the 16
countries with the highest occupancy rates3

3

These statistics were taken from World Prison Brief Online at 11 February 2010. Statistics are not necessarily
from the same year but represent the most recent figures available.

41335.1
307.1
302.4
264.2
255.3
249.5
240.8
223.3
223.3
223.0
218.0

Prison population rate (per100,000 of the nationalpopulation)
83
66
51
129
45
55
273
117
52
91
56

215.9

153

N/A

207.3

120

35.3

205.0

346

21.8

202.7
202.4

126
593

44.4
26.9

Occupancy rate(%)

Country
Haiti
Benin
Bangladesh
BurundiSudan
Pakistan
El Salvador
Kenya
Mali
UgandaCote DʼIvoire
French Polynesia(France)
ZambiaSt Vincent and theGrenadinesEcuador
RwandaPre-trial detainees (% of prisonpopulation)
78.0
79.6
69.0
68.0
c.10
66.1
35.9
43.3
88.7
56.0
28.5

22. Looked at the other way round, of the 20 countries with the highest rate of pre trial detention
14 have high rates of occupancy - over 120% . What this suggests is that the route to addressing
overcrowding is to improve the functioning of the criminal justice process.
23. The table below shows the occupancy rate in the 20 countries with the highest percentage of pretrial detainees4
Country
Liberia
Mali
Benin
Haiti
NigerBolivia
Congo(Brazzaville)
Paraguay
Nigeria
Bangladesh
BurundiIndia
Pakistan
Cameroon
MonacoHondurasPhilippines
Uruguay
Seychelles
LebanonPre-trial detainees (% of prison
population)
97.3
88.7
79.6
78.0
c.76
78.4

Occupancy rate(%)
136.3
223.3
307.1
335.1
64.6
165.5

c.70

N/A

69.5
69.3
69.0
68.0
66.6
66.1
65.6
64.0
63.5
63.3
63.1
63.0
62.5

116.3
84.1
302.4
264.2
135.7
249.5
137.4
44.4
140.0
156.4
133.6
76.3
120.9

24. This is particularly true in respect of countries emerging from conflict. Until the disaster,Haiti had the highest level of over-occupation and while data is diﬃcult to obtain, overcrowding
situations in Liberia, Rwanda and DR Congo can amount to humanitarian emergencies. Like allsuch emergencies, the response must include short term relief and the development of longer
term sustainable solutions.
442

These statistics were taken from World Prison Brief
at 11 February 2010. Statistics are not necessarily
from the same year but represent the most recent ﬁgures available.