Prison Statistics

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Prison Statistics

Prison Statistics for 2006

Source: The National Crime Records Bureau, Prison Statistics India 2006. http://ncrb.nic.in/PSI2006/prison2006.htm

Kinds and number of prisons based on capacity, classification by age, gender and purpose of use

Type of Prison	Purpose	Number
Central	To lodge prisoners with long sentences and high security prisoners. These also lodge under-trial prisoners	111
District	To lodge prisoners on trial or with medium range of sentences.	293
Sub	To lodge under-trial prisoners involved in petty offences and with small penal sentences	852
Women's	To lodge women prisoners exclusively. These are independent of the other prisons where are women lodged in a separate annexe of the main prison	15
Borstal School	To lodge prisoners in the age group of 16-21 years	10
Open	To lodge prisoners who are reformed and to provide them with a semi-open access to outside society	27
Special	To lodge difficult, violent, dangerous, habitual, professional criminals	20
Other Jails	Only some states have it. The purpose is not very clear	8
Total		1336

Available capacity vs. Inmate population and Occupancy rate [inmate population/ total capacity*100]

Available capacity	263911
Total inmate population	373271
Occupancy rate	141.4

Type and share of Prison inmates

Type of prisoners	Percentage
Convicts	31.3
Undertrials	65.7
Detenues	0.6
Other	2.4

Distribution of convicts and under-trials under various crime headsConvicts

Crime heads under the Indian Penal Code	Percentage
Murder	58.0
Attempt to Murder	8.4
Robbery	2.0
Rape	6.4
Culpable Homicide not amounting to Murder	3.4
Dacoity	2.8
Others	19
Crime heads under Special and local laws	Percentage
Drug related	33.0
Railway offences	11.2
Arms	13.6
Dowry	2.9
Excise	7.6
Prohibition	5.0
Gambling	3.1
Others	23.6

Under-trial prisoners

Crime heads under the Indian Penal Code	Percentage
Murder	28.0
Attempt to Murder	11.7
Thefts	12.2
Rape	5.6
Burglary	2.4
Dacoity	5.9
Others	34.2
Crime heads under Special and local laws	Percentage
Drug related	20.3
Railway offences	6.7
Arms	22.6
Dowry	7.8
Excise	10.8
Prohibition	3.7
Gambling	3.8
Others	24.3

Period of detention of under-trials

Period of detention	Percentage of under-trials
Up to 3 months	42.4
3-6 months	21.6
6-12 months	17.4
1-2 years	11.0
2-3 years	4.6
3-5 years	2.3
Above 5 years	0.6

Death in Jails

Death due to natural causes	1343
Death due to unnatural causes	80
Total	1423

Breakdown of unnatural deaths

Suicide	62
Execution, deaths due to firing	0
Murder by inmates	3
Death due to assault by outside elements	5
Death due to negligence/excess of jail personnel	2
Other causes	8

Sanctioned and actual strength of total jail staff during 2000

Sanctioned strength	58963
Actual Strength	48602
Percentage of actual to sanctioned strength	82.43

Budget

Total Annual Budget (plan + non plan)	Rs. 144509.8
Total Actual Expenditure	Rs. 93882.8

[All figures are in Rupees Lakhs where 1 Lakh = 1,00,000 units]

Prison Statistics for 2002

The National Crime Records Bureau is yet to process the Prison Statistics for the years 2001, 2002 and 2003. But according to the data available from the National Human Rights Commission of India, as on 30th June 2002,

There are 3,04,893 prisoners in Indian jails out of which 2,25,817 are under-trial prisoners.
The sanctioned capacity is 2,32,412. Consequently, the prisons are overcrowded by 31.19%.
Women account for 3.42% of the total population.
There are 787 children below the age of 5 - 6 with their mothers in the jails.

Source: June 2003 issue of the NHRC newsletter titled - 'Human Rights News Letter'

Prison Statistics for 2000

These figures do not provide information from the three newly carved states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal for which data was not available to the National Crime Records Bureau.