India
Corrections in India
Prisons are an exclusive State subject — run by the governments of the States and Union Territories — and the national aggregate stood above capacity at the end of 2024.
Facts on this page were checked against their sources on .
Prisons are an exclusive State subject (State List Entry 4), so the governments of the States and Union Territories — not the Union — run the jails, each under its own prison or correctional department. A national figure is therefore an aggregate across many separate systems.
The same idea, explained generally
- What is justice?
Justice is the principle that people should be treated according to rules that apply equally to everyone, decided by bodies that are authorised, constrained, and answerable. This guide explains what that means institutionally.
- Why do justice systems need oversight?
Justice institutions hold coercive powers, often operate out of public view, and make decisions that are hard to reverse. This guide explains the oversight mechanisms built to detect and correct errors, and their limits.
Sources
Sources
The Constitution of India (as on 1 May 2024)
Government of India, Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department) · Legislation · 1950-01-26 · link verified 2026-07-27
The official Constitution of India PDF (Ministry of Law and Justice, "As on 1st May, 2024"), fetched and text-extracted; the Seventh Schedule entries and the cited articles were re-confirmed verbatim in two independent passes. Supports the federal division of legislative power under the Seventh Schedule (Article 246): List II (State List) Entry 1 "Public order", Entry 2 "Police (including railway and village police)", Entry 4 "Prisons, reformatories, Borstal institutions… and persons detained therein" — so police, public order and prisons are exclusive STATE subjects; List III (Concurrent List) Entry 1 "Criminal law…", Entry 2 "Criminal procedure…", Entry 11A "Administration of Justice; constitution and organisation of all courts, except the Supreme Court and the High Courts" — so the criminal codes and subordinate-court organisation are concurrent (national); and List I (Union List) Entry 8 "Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation". Also supports Article 50 (separation of the judiciary from the executive), Article 124 (the Supreme Court of India), Article 141 (Supreme Court law binding on all courts), Article 214 ("There shall be a High Court for each State"), and Article 235 (High Court control over district and subordinate courts).
Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), Birkbeck, University of London · Academic · link verified 2026-07-27
The World Prison Brief country page for India (compiled by ICPR from the National Crime Records Bureau's Prison Statistics India), read directly and re-confirmed by hand. Supports: prison administration by "Governments of States and Union Territories" (corroborating that prisons are a State function); a total prison population of 511,542 including pre-trial detainees at 31 December 2024 (source: the National Crime Records Bureau); a rate of 36 per 100,000; an official capacity of 453,769 at the same date; and an occupancy level of 112.7% at 31 December 2024 — above capacity.