LAHORE:
With 102,026 prisoners crammed into 128 prisons across Pakistan, including Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), the country’s prison system is operating at an alarming 152.2% of its official capacity, according to the Prison Data Report 2024.
The ground-breaking report by the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) sheds light on the harsh conditions in which some prisons exceed 300% of their capacity.
The report reveals that overcrowding remains a critical concern despite a modest 1.66% increase in the prison population from 2023.
Undertrial inmates make up 73.41% of the total population, highlighting systemic inefficiencies such as lengthy court delays and inefficient bail and parole systems.
Punjab, which houses 60.7% of the prison population, is running its prisons at 173.6% of capacity. Sindh follows with 161.42%, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa at 102.50% and Balochistan at 115.60%. Karachi Central Prison is an example of the crisis, housing 8,518 inmates against a capacity of 2,400 – a staggering 354.92%.
In Punjab, 61,813 prisoners are held in facilities designed for 37,217 inmates. Despite the construction of four new prisons with a capacity of 2,268 inmates, the province’s efforts to alleviate overcrowding remain inadequate.
The number of pretrial detainees has increased by 8% over the past eight years, rising from 66% in 2017 to 73.41% in 2024. This is significantly higher than the global average of 27%.
The report also highlights the inconsistency in remand reporting. Sindh recorded a 29.5% drop in the number of pre-trial detainees in 2024, while Punjab and KP failed to report any data.
Drug-related offenses continue to dominate prison populations, with 23,367 inmates jailed under the Control of Narcotic Drugs Act (CNSA) – an increase of 18.98% from 2023. Punjab leads with 13,331 cases, accounting for 29.94% of its total prison population .
Ironically, while incarceration rates for drug offenses have increased, conviction rates have decreased. Punjab saw a decline from 16% in 2022 to just 2% in 2023.
Death row inmates also saw a small increase, increasing by 1.17% to 3,646 in 2024, despite no executions since December 2019.
The report criticizes outdated prison rules, particularly in Punjab, where the 1978 prison rules do not conform to international standards. Proposed reforms, including the draft Punjab Prison Rules 2020 and 2022, remain unadopted.
Meanwhile, Sindh and KP have made progress with the Sindh Prisons and Correction Services Act 2019 and the KP Prisons Amendment Act 2020 that are more closely aligned with international standards.
