Background

Prison overcrowding is a persistent and widespread problem in many regions of the world. It affects not only the amount of living space available to persons deprived of liberty, but the functioning of prison systems as a whole. Overcrowding can compromise access to health care, water and sanitation, adequate food, exercise and meaningful activities; increase exposure to violence and communicable diseases; and place additional pressure on prison staff and available resources.

Overcrowding may therefore significantly aggravate conditions of detention and, depending on its severity and cumulative effects, contribute to conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

At the same time, prison overcrowding cannot be understood solely as a problem of insufficient physical capacity. It is closely linked to decisions made throughout the criminal justice process, including criminalisation and penal policy; arrest and prosecution practices; the use and duration of pretrial detention; sentencing practices; the availability and effective use of non-custodial measures; the length of imprisonment; access to parole, early and conditional release; and the availability of appropriate health and social services outside the criminal justice system.

Experience across different jurisdictions also raises important questions concerning the effectiveness and sustainability of different responses. Measures that increase physical prison capacity may alleviate immediate pressure but do not necessarily address the factors driving prison population growth. Conversely, legal and policy reforms intended to reduce imprisonment may have limited effects if they are not accompanied by changes in institutional practices, adequate resources and effective implementation mechanisms.

Preventing and reducing overcrowding therefore requires interventions at different stages of the criminal justice process, together with mechanisms capable of responding rapidly when prison populations exceed safe or lawful capacity.

Objectives

The Special Rapporteur is developing a technical guide on practical measures to reduce and prevent prison overcrowding.

The guide will seek to identify measures that are effective, feasible, rights-compliant and adaptable to different legal, social and institutional contexts, and to provide practical guidance concerning their implementation.

This call is addressed to Member States, local and regional governments, national human rights institutions, international and regional organizations, academics and other relevant stakeholders and civil society organizations, to submit written contributions. The call includes and encourages submissions from organizations of persons currently or formerly deprived of liberty, family organizations, legal aid providers, human rights defenders, organizations conducting detention monitoring, community-based organizations, researchers and other actors with direct experience or knowledge of prison systems.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

The Special Rapporteur particularly welcomes practical knowledge derived from monitoring, litigation, advocacy, service provision and lived experience. The purpose is not primarily to obtain further descriptions of the existence or consequences of overcrowding, but to identify what can be done in practice to reduce it and prevent its recurrence.

Contributions concerning measures that have failed, encountered significant implementation barriers or produced unintended consequences are as valuable as examples of successful practice.

Contributors do not need to answer all questions.

Questions

1. Measures that have successfully reduced prison populations

Which laws, policies, judicial practices, administrative measures or civil society initiatives have successfully reduced prison populations or prison occupancy rates?

Please indicate, where possible, how the measure was implemented, which institutions were responsible, what impact it had, whether the effects were sustained, what difficulties arose and whether the measure could be replicated or adapted elsewhere.

2. Reducing entry into prison

What measures have proved effective in reducing unnecessary detention or imprisonment?

Contributions may address, among other issues:

• reducing the use and duration of pretrial detention;
• decriminalisation and diversion;
• alternatives to detention or imprisonment;
• sentencing reform and proportionality;
• restrictions on short or mandatory prison sentences;
• improved access to legal assistance; and
• changes in police, prosecutorial or judicial practices.

What safeguards are necessary to ensure that alternatives genuinely replace deprivation of liberty rather than expanding criminal justice supervision to persons who would otherwise not have been detained (“net-widening”)?

3. Reducing time spent in prison

Which mechanisms have effectively reduced unnecessary periods of imprisonment?

Contributions may address parole, conditional or supervised release, sentence review, remission, compassionate release, release on grounds of age or serious illness, and other early or emergency release mechanisms.

What legal, administrative or practical barriers prevent eligible persons from benefiting from these mechanisms? What changes have successfully overcome those barriers?

4. Capacity limits, prevention and emergency responses

Are there effective examples of legally enforceable prison capacity limits, maximum occupancy thresholds, early-warning systems or other mechanisms designed to prevent overcrowding?

What happens when established capacity limits are reached or exceeded? Which authorities are required to act and what measures are triggered?

What measures can be implemented rapidly when overcrowding reaches levels that place persons deprived of liberty at serious risk of torture or other ill-treatment?

The Special Rapporteur particularly welcomes examples of judicial, legislative or administrative mechanisms that require or trigger reductions in prison populations when defined thresholds are exceeded.

5. Prison construction and expansion

To what extent has the construction of new prisons or expansion of existing prison capacity succeeded or failed in reducing overcrowding over the medium and long term?

Are there examples in which increased prison capacity initially reduced overcrowding but was subsequently followed by further growth in the prison population?

What factors determine whether additional capacity provides only temporary relief or contributes to a sustainable reduction in overcrowding?

Has prison construction diverted resources from measures capable of reducing reliance on imprisonment?

What lessons can be drawn regarding reliance on additional prison capacity as a response to overcrowding?

6. Groups disproportionately affected and social drivers of imprisonment

What measures have proved effective in reducing unnecessary imprisonment among groups disproportionately represented in prisons or particularly vulnerable to the effects of overcrowding?

Contributions may address women; children and young persons; older persons; persons with disabilities, including psychosocial disabilities; migrants and foreign nationals; Indigenous Peoples; racial, ethnic and other minorities; persons experiencing poverty or homelessness; and persons with substance-use disorders.

Are there effective examples of diversion to health, mental-health, drug-treatment, housing or social-support services?

What specific safeguards or adaptations are necessary to ensure that measures designed to reduce prison populations do not disadvantage particular groups?

7. Obstacles to implementation

What are the principal political, legal, institutional, financial or social obstacles preventing governments from adopting or effectively implementing measures known to reduce prison populations?

Contributors are particularly invited to consider political resistance; public perceptions of crime and punishment; media narratives; punitive criminal justice policies; legislative barriers; institutional incentives; resistance within police, prosecutorial, judicial or prison institutions; insufficient funding for non-custodial measures and community services; and lack of political accountability for prison overcrowding.

Which strategies have successfully overcome these obstacles?

The Special Rapporteur particularly welcomes examples involving civil society advocacy, strategic litigation, independent monitoring, coalition-building or participation of persons directly affected by imprisonment.

8. Costs and allocation of resources

What evidence exists comparing the economic and social costs of imprisonment with those of non-custodial measures and other approaches capable of reducing prison populations?

Are there examples in which resources have been redirected from prison construction or incarceration towards alternatives to detention, legal assistance, health and mental-health care, housing, drug treatment and harm reduction, rehabilitation, reintegration or other community-based services?

Where possible, please provide information on:

• the costs of the measures compared;
• resources required for implementation;
• savings or other economic effects;
• impact on prison populations and overcrowding; and
• other relevant outcomes, including recidivism, reintegration and public safety.

The Special Rapporteur particularly welcomes examples demonstrating how budgetary decisions or the reallocation of existing resources have facilitated — or hindered — sustainable reductions in prison populations.

Type of information sought

The Special Rapporteur particularly welcomes:

• concrete national or local examples;
• quantitative or qualitative evidence of impact;
• evaluations of laws, policies or programmes;
• judicial decisions and examples of strategic litigation;
• information derived from prison monitoring or legal assistance;
• first-hand experience of persons currently or formerly deprived of liberty and their families;
• examples of unsuccessful reforms or unintended consequences;
• information on implementation costs, resources and institutional responsibilities; and
• practical tools, protocols, guidelines or models that could inform the technical guide.
• whether, and under what conditions, the measure could be replicated or adapted in other jurisdictions.

Contributors are encouraged to distinguish between measures that temporarily alleviate overcrowding and measures capable of structurally reducing reliance on imprisonment and preventing overcrowding from recurring.