India’s prison system is buckling under its own weight, a crisis laid bare by crumbling infrastructure, systemic neglect, and a human toll that reverberates far beyond the cell walls. As of January 2025, India’s 1,319 jails house over 5.06 lakh prisoners against a sanctioned capacity of 4.36 lakh, operating at a staggering 131% occupancy nationally, with facilities like Moradabad Central Jail in Uttar Pradesh exceeding 400% capacity. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals that 76% of these inmates are undertrials, languishing without conviction, transforming prisons into overcrowded holding pens rather than reformative institutions. This feature, grounded in recent NCRB data, the India Justice Report 2025, and cases from Karnataka and across India, explores the multifaceted crisis: delayed justice, forgotten women, a mental health epidemic, soaring costs, and the contentious debate over privatization. As the Supreme Court pushes reforms like electronic tracking for undertrials in November 2024, can India’s colonial-era jails evolve into spaces of justice and redemption?
Undertrial injustice: When justice is delayed behind bars
India’s prisons, built as colonial tools for short-term detention, now trap the presumed innocent for years. The NCRB’s Prison Statistics India 2022—the latest comprehensive report as of mid-2025—shows 4.34 lakh of 5.73 lakh prisoners were undertrials, a 75.8% share. By 2025, this has risen to nearly 3.75 lakh of 5.06 lakh inmates, per Ministry of Home Affairs advisories. The India Justice Report 2025 projects undertrials could reach 5.26 lakh by 2030 without urgent action, worsening overcrowding in 55% of jails.
The root cause is a choked judicial system: India has only 21 judges per million people, far below the recommended 50, with over 4.4 crore cases pending as of 2024, per the National Judicial Data Grid. In Karnataka, the state’s 70 prisons, including Bengaluru Central Jail, hold 18,000 inmates against a capacity of 12,000, with undertrials making up 70%. A Karnataka High Court directive in August 2025 urged better parole reporting to ease crowding, noting it hampers reformation—a core goal of incarceration.
Consider Ravi Kumar, a 45-year-old laborer from Chitradurga, arrested in 2023 on flimsy theft charges. Detained in Bellary Central Jail, he waited 18 months without trial, his family sinking into debt for legal fees. In April 2025, the Supreme Court ordered his release under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), slamming “bail is not jail” delays. Yet, such relief is rare. Under Trial Review Committees (UTRCs) recommended releasing 73,635 undertrials in 2023, but only 48% were freed, per IndiaSpend. In Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow District Jail’s 2025 riot, driven by 80% undertrials facing delays over two years, reflects the unrest. Tamil Nadu’s 2024 PIL on 15,000 undertrials prompted fast-track courts, while Karnataka’s Mysuru Jail reported deaths in 2024 linked to overcrowding neglect. As The Indian Express notes, these inmates—often poor, Dalit, or Muslim—lose their Article 21 right to liberty in a system where justice delayed is justice denied.
Reforms like the BNSS’s investigation timelines and Delhi’s 2024 electronic tagging pilot for undertrials offer hope, but implementation falters. Without action, prisons remain purgatories for the unconvicted.
Women in Indian prisons: Forgotten behind the walls
Women prisoners, numbering 23,000 or 4.1% of India’s 5.06 lakh inmates in 2024, endure a unique ordeal in a system designed for men. With only 34 dedicated women’s jails, many are confined in substandard barracks within male facilities, facing neglect of menstrual hygiene and separation from children. A 2024 Economic and Political Weekly commentary calls prisons “trauma sites” for women, where poverty and caste amplify suffering.
In Karnataka, Hindalga Women’s Jail in Belagavi, built for 200, routinely holds 250, with shared toilets lacking sanitary pads, violating the Model Prison Manual 2016. A 2025 Karnataka State Women’s Commission report found 60% of female inmates are undertrials, often charged in domestic or petty cases, with trials dragging years. Lakshmi, a 32-year-old from Davangere, jailed since 2023 for alleged dowry harassment (later disproved), gave birth in custody without adequate postnatal care, her infant malnourished amid overcrowding.
Nationally, the crisis deepens. Feminism in India’s July 2024 report highlighted menstrual health neglect, with women reusing rags due to irregular supplies. A 2024 West Bengal study in the Journal of Women & Aging reported 40% of female inmates facing physical or sexual harassment, despite Supreme Court mandates from Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration (1978). Over 2,000 children under six, allowed with mothers per 2023 rules, lack creches or nutrition, risking stunted growth. Maharashtra’s Yerwada Women’s Jail, probed in 2025 by The Times of India, crams 300 women into space for 150, with tuberculosis rampant. Andhra Pradesh’s Rajahmundry Circle Jail saw a maternal death in February 2025 from denied emergency care, sparking protests. For these women, often marginalized first-time offenders, prison is erasure, not correction. As Pratiksha Baxi wrote in a 2025 Social Change article, the COVID-19 era’s “penal logic” sorted women into “deserving” or “undeserving” for bail, hitting the poor hardest.
Vocational programs like weaving exist, but only 20% participate, per NCRB. The Supreme Court’s 2024 call for gender-sensitive reforms, like separate healthcare, remains unimplemented. These women aren’t just forgotten—they’re broken by the system.
Mental Health Crisis in Indian Prisons
Overcrowding breeds a silent epidemic: mental illness. A 2024 Asian Journal of Psychiatry review pegs prevalence at 21-33%, excluding substance disorders, yet services are scarce. Depression affects 73%, anxiety 78%, and somatization 82% of inmates, per a PMC study on Tihar Jail, worsened by isolation and abuse. With just 0.5 psychiatrists per 1,000 prisoners, care is a mirage.
In Karnataka, Bengaluru Central Jail reported three suicides in 2024, tied to mental strain from 150% occupancy. An investigation in August 2025 found Delhi’s prisons with 749 mentally ill inmates but only 50 psychiatric beds, with untrained staff. Nationally, 40-50% of prisoners battle addiction, fueling self-harm, per a 2025 PMC article. Rajasthan’s Jaipur Central Jail saw a 2024 riot over untreated schizophrenia cases amid 200% crowding. UNODC’s November 2024 toolkit launch in Lucknow urged staff training on mental health and drugs, but progress is slow.
Undertrials suffer most, with prolonged uncertainty triggering PTSD. The India Justice Report 2025 notes near-100% psychiatric morbidity in some jails. Yoga programs in Andhra Pradesh cut symptoms by 30%, but scale is limited. As The Hindu editorialized in 2024, ignoring this risks recidivism spikes post-release, perpetuating crime cycles.
The economics of incarceration: What Indian jails cost the taxpayer
The crisis isn’t just human—it’s fiscal. At INR 105 per prisoner daily, per a 2024 Economics Declassified analysis, incarcerating 5.06 lakh inmates costs over INR 19,400 crore annually—INR 38,325 per inmate yearly. States like Uttar Pradesh spend up to INR 150 daily on basics. Overcrowding inflates maintenance by 20-30%, per PIB estimates. Karnataka’s 2024-25 prison budget of INR 450 crore for 18,000 inmates is strained by leaks and inefficiencies, like unspent decongestion funds.
Undertrials drive 70% of costs; releasing them via UTRCs could save INR 5,000 crore yearly, but only half are freed. Families, impoverished by lost wages, often turn to crime, compounding the burden. A 2025 Sansad annexure urged new jails at INR 50 crore each, but prevention—education, jobs—would cost less. Taxpayers fund not just custody but the failure to address root causes.
Rehabilitation or Punishment? The role of vocational training in Indian jails
Punishment without reform breeds recidivism, yet only 15% of inmates access vocational training—tailoring, carpentry, agriculture—despite a 43% drop in reoffending, per a 2024 JETIR study. The Model Prison Manual mandates education, but delivery varies. In Karnataka’s Mysuru Central Jail, a 2025 tailoring program trained 200 women, with 60% employed post-release. Tihar’s bakery initiative employs 500, cutting reoffending by 25%. A 2025 ResearchGate paper found vocational skills boost employability by 40%.
But challenges abound: Bihar’s Patna Jail halted programs in 2024 due to 250% occupancy. Funding is meager—INR 500 crore nationally vs. a needed INR 2,000 crore. Andhra’s agriculture co-ops, generating INR 10 lakh in 2024, show promise. As a PSSCIVE study notes, blending skills with counseling turns punishment into opportunity, but scale must grow.
Privatization of Prisons: A viable future or a dangerous precedent?
With costs soaring, privatization tempts policymakers. A 2024 Burnished Law Journal article claims it could cut taxpayer burden by 20%, citing global models for modern jails. Rajasthan’s 2025 budget explored PPP pilots. But critics, including a 2024 NLUJ analysis, call it unconstitutional, arguing Article 21’s right to life can’t be commodified. PRI’s 2024 Global Prison Trends report warns of profit-driven abuses. Karnataka’s 2025 assembly rejected privatization, fearing caste biases in private management.
The Supreme Court’s 2024 ban on caste discrimination in prisons complicates private oversight. While infrastructure could benefit, privatizing dignity risks abuse. Public reforms—fast-track courts, mental health units—are safer bets.
India’s prison crisis demands action: judicial reforms, gender-sensitive care, and robust training. The MHA’s April 2025 undertrial release advisory is a step, but without political will, jails remain warehouses, not reformatories. The India Justice Report 2025 calls decongestion a constitutional duty. Taxpayers deserve prisons that rehabilitate, not systems that squander lives and rupees. The walls hold, but the system is fracturing.