Each year the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) administers the United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (UN-CTS) to gather comprehensive information on the global prison population and the processes of correctional systems across all UN member states. The UNODC’s first edition of Prison Matters, which follows the 2021 and 2023 publications of Data Matters on prisons, is their report on this collected and analyzed data.
The document is the product of UNODC’s Research and Trend Analysis Branch, supervised by Branch Chief Angela Me and coordinated by Chloe Carpentier, Chief of the UNODC Research and Knowledge Production Section. Analysis and drafting contributions were provided by Hussain A. Al-Naser, Mark Brown, David Rausis, and Markus Schwabe.
Background
A key statistic observed by UNODC was that global incarceration rates remain high, despite a dramatic reduction during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recognizing that a driving factor of recidivism is the prison not adequately preparing individuals to be law-abiding and self-supporting in the community, and that this return to pre-pandemic levels is cause for concern, UNODC sent out a second supplemental survey focused on learning the rehabilitation plans and practices of prisons across different jurisdictions. The results of this survey were combined with UN-CTS results and further supported by data from other sources to articulate the UNODC findings for 2024.
“The purposes of a sentence of imprisonment or similar measures deprivative of a person’s liberty are primarily to protect society against crime and to reduce recidivism. Those purposes can be achieved only if the period of imprisonment is used to ensure, so far as possible, the reintegration of such persons into society upon release so that they can lead a law-abiding and self-supporting life.” – Rule #4, The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules)
Key Findings and Interpretations
Global Prison Population and Conditions
The UNODC found that the global prison population had risen approximately 1.6% from 2021 to the end of 2022, accounting for 11.5 million incarcerated individuals (10.8 million men and 700,000 women). This also marks a 5.5% increase overall since 2012, although the survey found that different regions saw rates of increase or decrease:
- Northern America continues to show the highest rate of incarceration in 2022, but has also seen a decline of approximately 25% since 2012.
- Europe’s rate of incarceration also declined overall, with Eastern Europe in particular experiencing a 36% decrease.
- In Asia, the incarceration rate slightly increased (approximately 5.6%), although the increases in western, southern, and south-eastern Asian countries were offset by a significant decrease in central Asia.
UNODC also noted that individuals living in North and South America were nearly four times more likely to be in prison than those living in Africa.
One significant consequence in the rising number of the global prison population is a crisis of prison overcrowding, with the UN-CTS finding that over 60% of surveyed nations reported operating at full capacity or beyond–and that nearly 25% reported they were at over 150% capacity. This statistic raises real concerns about the quality of health and human rights for those held in those facilities, particularly in the Americas and Africa, which showed the highest rates of overcrowded facilities.
Mortality Rates and Causes
As conditions of incarceration decline, the physical and mental well-being of prisoners also shows alarming trends. The UN-CTS collected data on mortality within prison populations and calculated a global average from reliable data in 95 member nations (mortality data from Asian, African, and Oceania regions were not considered wholly reliable). Deaths were sorted into four distinct categories:
- Natural causes
- Accidents
- Intentional homicide
- Suicide
The analysis showed that the rate of death among the global prison population was approximately 3 per 1,000 individuals. Countries within the Americas reported an exponentially higher rate of intentional homicides than other regions – more than 600% higher than Europe, which showed the second highest intentional homicide rate. Of significant concern was the finding that at least one in every ten deaths reported in prison was due to suicide, a rate nearly 300% higher than the suicide rate across the general global population.
Pre-Trial Detention
The UN-CTS survey sections on pre-trial detention are designed to determine the degree to which a correctional system’s processes have left individuals in detention without having received an official sentence of incarceration. Of the 11.5 million prisoners counted across all participating member nations, UNODC found that 3.5 million – over 30% of the total prison population – were placed within this pre-trial status. This proportion has remained approximately the same since 2012, with distinct regional characteristics also found in the data:
- The highest proportion of unsentenced detainees are reported in the Africa and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) regions, both at 36%.
- The lowest proportion of unsentenced detainees was within Europe, at 18%.
- The southern Asia region showed the greatest ten-year increase in this rate, jumping from 52% to 63%.
- In some regions – Africa, Oceania, North America, and South America – the survey also reported a gender gap in this population of pre-trial detainees, observing that women were 5-8% more likely to be held without receiving a sentence.
Rehabilitation
The supplemental survey on prison rehabilitation practices provided several noteworthy findings elaborated within the UNODC report. One cause for optimism was that nearly three-fourths of the jurisdictions surveyed described having a rehabilitative framework in place already or that such a framework was within the planning stages, which would reflect that a majority of prisons worldwide have placed a priority on rehabilitation. The survey also asked administrators to rank a series of core goals for developing a positive environment for prisoner rehabilitation, with three goals receiving a consistent “high-priority” ranking:
- Fair and dignified prisoner treatment
- Torture prevention mechanisms
- Safety and security
And two goals consistently ranked “low-priority”:
- Active civil society involvement that supported prisoners with non-state partnerships
- “Normalised” community-like prison conditions that would reflect those of the general public
The survey also included an open-ended request for goal suggestions, which provided two additional concepts related to behavioral change:
- Individualized case management for each prisoner
- Improved inter-agency coordination between prisons and post-release entities (ie, probation and parole agencies)
Half of the jurisdictions that reported having a rehabilitation program in place reported that prisoners had been made active stakeholders in the planning stages, indicating that there is a growing interest among policymakers and prison administrators to implement this as a best practice to facilitate better outcomes. The UNODC report does note that there are regional disparities in this trend – far fewer jurisdictions in Europe indicated an inclination to involve prisoners in developing rehabilitation frameworks, and none of the responding African nations followed this practice.
The UNODC reports, however, that prisons who have implemented or are planning a rehabilitation strategy more frequently report a focus on general prison management than on practices centering the offender and their future reintegration in society. For example, 82% of respondents had implemented measures to counter torture and corruption through prisoner complaint management mechanisms. Practices that provide equal access to healthcare services as would be found outside of prison, increasing contact with family and close connections, and generally working to reduce institutionalizing routine were reported with far less frequency, at only 43%.
The UNODC survey did also raise questions regarding the effectiveness of efforts to advance rehabilitation programs in regions where prison staffing is inadequate. In those jurisdictions where there are fewer correctional staff in relation to the size of the prison population, safety concerns are undermining efforts to develop rehabilitative environments. The global average showed an approximate ratio of four prisoners to every staff member; however, in Asia the average was close to seven prisoners per staff member and in Europe this number was closer to two prisoners per staff member. The report points out that there is not currently any agreed-upon guidance for ideal prisoner-to-staff ratios, due in part to the wide range of prison architecture and infrastructure across different countries. However, the survey showed that only 49% of jurisdictions that responded to the UNODC survey on prison rehabilitation felt they had adequate prisoner-to-staff ratios, and that the pressure of being understaffed was reflected in their capacity to implement rehabilitation frameworks.
Conclusions
The findings from the UN-CTS and supplemental survey have led the UNODC to suggest six chief policy goals for prisons worldwide:
- Reduce the use of pre-trial detention: UNODC stresses that an over-reliance on pre-trial detention has been found to contribute to prison overcrowding and subsequent deterioration of conditions within facilities, as well as socioeconomic costs for the accused and their communities. Numerous studies have also shown that reducing pre-trial detention practices improves sustainability and cost savings to the state.
- Reduce prison overcrowding: In addition to being an acute human rights violation, overcrowded prisons undermine most operations and conditions within the facility, and create both emotional and physical burdens on both prisoners and staff that reduce the capacity to engage in effective rehabilitation programs.
- Ensure gender-responsive prisons: Since women represent a significant minority of the global prison population, the majority of existing systems are designed with male prisoners in mind. Criminal justice policies often fail to consider measures that take into account the trends of offense and relatively lower security risks of female prisoners, and also disproportionately affects children of these prisoners, who are more likely to end up in the foster care system. This lack of recognition also affects opportunities for rehabilitation, which may not reflect the needs of female prisoners.
- Reduce preventable deaths in custody: Lack of proper risk and needs assessments at the time of incarceration, as well as an inadequate standard of safety within many prisons, are leading to a preventable rise in suicides across the global prison population. Enhanced procedures, such as access to qualified healthcare professionals and efforts to reduce security risks among prisoners – which will include the reduction of overcrowding issues – are vital to tackling this trend.
- Ensure adequate prison staffing: In regions where prison staff feel overwhelmed, their capacity to effectively engage with prisoners and implement policies designed to maintain and improve conditions are severely limited. By working to answer staffing shortages, these facilities will be better equipped to execute these plans.
- Foster rehabilitation for prisoners: By investing in programs that rehabilitate prisoners and provide them with opportunities for successful reintegration, correctional systems reduce recidivism, which are a major driver of the rise in the global prison population. However, in many cases the only way to create the proper environment and procedures for rehabilitation is to address issues within the prison that hinder their development.
“Overcrowding may generate conflicts, fuel violence, erode prison infrastructure and pose immense security and management challenges…the impact of overcrowding multiplies the challenges faced by prison services in preserving the integrity of prison management, ensuring the health, safety and well-being of prisoners, maintaining a rehabilitative prison regime and preserving prison security.”
These conclusions speak to UNODC’s overall thesis in the first edition of Prison Matters: “The survey results…reveal widespread recognition of the importance of rehabilitation in prison.”
Source: UNODC Global Prison Population and Trends: A Focus on Rehabilitation https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/briefs/Prison_brief_2024.pdf
