List of countries by incarceration rate

Prison population of Europe is approximately 1.2 million[2] of total 743 million population.[3]

With a prison population of 42,000 and a total 2018 population of 25 million, Australia has an incarceration rate of 171 per 100,000 population, or 222 per 100,000 adult population.[4]

In addition to its standard prisons, Australia also operates a separate system of immigration prisons to detain foreigners who have breached the terms of, or lack a visa.[5] Some of these immigration detention centres are used to indefinitely detain[6] asylum seekers and refugees, including children,[7] often without trial, sometimes for several years.[6] Immigration detainees are not included in the data for prison population and incarceration rates.[8]

Additionally, the number of prisoners and incarceration rate differs for each Australian state and territory, with some having much higher or lower incarceration rates than the national average.

In addition to adult prisoners, on an average night in June 2017, there was 964 minors imprisoned in Australia.[9]

According to the World Prison Brief, China had an incarceration rate of 118 per 100,000 as of mid-2015 (for 1,649,804 sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only). The World Prison Brief states that in addition to the sentenced prisoners, there may be more than 650,000 held in detention centers. "A total prison population of 2,300,000 would raise the incarceration rate to 164 per 100,000."[10]

After 2015 there was a great increase in the number of people in the Xinjiang re-education camps. In May 2018, Randall Schriver of the United States Department of Defense claimed that "at least a million but likely closer to three million citizens" were imprisoned in detention centers in a strong condemnation of the "concentration camps".[11][12][13] In August 2018, a United Nations human rights panel said that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uyghurs in China have been held in "re-education camps".[14][15]

In January 2020, a former high ranking judge in Cuba leaked secret Cuban government documents that showed the country had the highest incarceration rate in the world at over 90,000 prisoners, with thousands in prison on dubious charges. Documents reviewed by the New York Times showed 92% of individuals tried in the country are found guilty. Nearly 4,000 every year are accused of being "antisocial" or "dangerous", which are terms used by the government to charge those that have committed no crime but are viewed by the regime as a risk to the status quo. Those charges have a 99.5% conviction rate. These individuals face summary trials with no right to a defense or to present evidence, according to the former judge. The documents show individuals being sentenced for several years in prison under the category of "anti-social", which can include actions like not belonging to state associated civic organizations or being unemployed. The crime "description" is often identical, appearing to be copy and pasted by police.[16] The high incarceration rate in the secret documents is consistent with dissident group claims that the Cuban government's 2012 one-time release of inmate population numbers, when they reported 57,000 inmates, was false. [17]

According to Human Rights Watch, the Cuban government employs arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate regime critics, independent activists, political opponents, and others. Human Rights Watch's 2018 report noted "Cubans who criticize the government face the threat of criminal prosecution. They do not benefit from due process guarantees, such as the right to fair and public hearings by a competent and impartial tribunal. In some cases, detainees are released after receiving official warnings, which prosecutors can later use in subsequent criminal trials to show a pattern of “delinquent” behavior."[18]

The prison population of India was 433,003 as of December 31, 2016, according to the World Prison Brief.[19] According to the National Prison Portal website when viewed on 22 October 2019, the prison population of India is around 473,000.[20]

Little information exists regarding North Korea's incarceration rate. In 2012, the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimated 150,000 to 200,000 are incarcerated, based on testimonies of defectors from the state police bureau, which roughly equals 600–800 people incarcerated per 100,000.[21] For more information, see Prisons in North Korea.

The main chart source only provides rates for the constituent parts of the UK.[1] In the above table see Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England and Wales. If they are not listed separately, then they can be found listed under the UK listing.

The incarceration rate (per 100,000 population of all ages) is for inmates held in adult facilities in the United States. It does not include inmates in the custody of correctional facilities operated by departments of corrections in U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and U.S. commonwealths (Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico).[23][24]

In addition, there were 43,580 juveniles in juvenile detention in 2017.[22] For more juvenile detention information and numbers, see Youth incarceration in the United States.

The incarceration rate in the U.S. varies greatly by U.S. state. See: List of U.S. states and territories by incarceration and correctional supervision rate.