" This report shows that more than 10.99 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, either as pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners or having been convicted and sentenced. Figures for Eritrea, Somalia and the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea are not available and those for China are incomplete (see footnote to Table 3 concerning China). Also missing are prisoners held under authorities not recognised internationally and those pre-trial prisoners who are held in police facilities and not included in published national prison population totals. The full total is therefore higher than 10.99 million and may well be in excess of 11.5 million.
" There are nearly 1.8 million prisoners in the United States of America, 1.69 million in China (plus unknown numbers in pre-trial detention and other forms of detention), 840,000 in Brazil, 573,000 in India, 433,000 in the Russian Federation, 314,000 in Turkey, 274,000 in Thailand, 265,000 in Indonesia, 233,000 in Mexico, 189,000 in Iran, and 181,000 in the Philippines.
" The countries with the highest prison population rate – that is, the number of prisoners per 100,000 of the national population – are El Salvador (1,086 per 100,000), followed by Cuba (794), Rwanda (637), Turkmenistan (576), American Samoa (538), the United States (531), Tonga (516), Panama (499), Guam (475), Palau (428), Uruguay (424), Bahamas (409) Antigua and Barbuda (400), Thailand (391 and Brazil (390).
" However, just under half of all countries and territories (49%) have rates below 150 per 100,000.
" The world prison population rate, based on United Nations estimates of national population levels, is 140 per 100,000."
Fair, Helen, and Walmsley, Roy, World Prison Population List (Fourteenth Edition), 2024, London, England: International Centre for Prison Studies, School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London.
