More than 10.1 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world the latest World Prison Population Briefing revealed published in late July by the International Centre for Prison Studies, University of Essex. According to the briefing paper there has been a 300,000 increase in the world’s prison population over last two years since the previous edition was issued.
The World Prison Population Briefing covers 218 countries and territories with unavailable figures from only seven countries – Bhutan, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea Bissau, North Korea and Somalia.
According to briefing, United States of America (USA) still remains the leading country with 2.29 million people in prisons, China as a second with 1.65 million sentenced prisoners, and Russia occupies a third place having imprisoned 0.81 million people for the moment of writing the briefing.
The USA also has the highest prison population rate in the world, 743 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by Rwanda (c. 595), Russia (568), Georgia (547), U.S. Virgin Is. (539), Seychelles (507), St Kitts & Nevis (495), British Virgin Is. (468), Belize (439), Dominica (431), Bermuda (428), Grenada (423) and Curacao (422).
The overall world prison population rate (based on 10.1 million prisoners and a world population of 6.9 billion) is 146 per 100,000.
The largest rises in recent years in Europe have occurred in Turkey and Georgia, in both of which the prison population doubled between 2006 and 2010. The largest recent falls in prison population in Europe have been in Moldova and the Netherlands, in both of which the total fell by more than 25% in the same four-year period.
The full briefing of World Prison Population is available here