Overcrowding in prisons increased in 2021 despite higher jail capacity

How overcrowded are Indian prisons? According to the 2021 prison statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the number of prisoners in Indian jails was 30% more than their capacity. This 2021 figure of overcrowding is 12 percentage points more than in 2020 and much higher than the overcrowding for any year going back to at least 2010, the earliest year for which HT has collated data from NCRB reports. This high level of overcrowding was not because of a stagnant prison capacity, which has grown every year since 2010. As is expected, the problem exists because the number of prisoners has grown at an even faster rate. The CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of prison capacity was 2.6% from 2010 to 2021, while it was 3.8% for prisoners.