DATA STORY : Women in Prison

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Prison administration is an important component of the criminal justice system. Prison institutions are known by different names in different countries like ‘Correctional Facilities’, ‘Detention Centre’, ‘Jails’, ‘Remand Centre’ etc. There is a paradigm shift in social viewpoint towards prisoners in the last century.

Women jails are special Jails that exclusively confined only female prisoners & these Jails are called Women Jail. Women jail may exist at sub-divisional, district & central (Zone/Range) level. Women jails exclusively for women prisoners exist only in 14 States/UT. Rajasthan (6), having highest number of Women Jails followed by Tamil Nadu (5), Kerala (3), Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Delhi (2 each). West Bengal, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh have one women jail each.

A total of 3,094 (3,084 females and 10 transgender) inmates population were lodged in various Women jails of the country against the total Capacity of 6,179 inmates as on 31st December, 2020. The highest number of inmates were lodged in jails of Tamil Nadu (494) followed by Delhi (472), Rajasthan (352) and West Bengal (336). The Occupancy rate of Women jails at National level was 50.1% and Bihar (111.2%) has reported highest overcrowding in Women jails, followed by West Bengal (107.1) and Maharashtra (101.5%). However, overcrowding may differ on a day to day and jail to jail basis.

There were 1,427 women prisoners with 1,628 children as on 31st December, 2020. Among these women prisoners, 1,184 women prisoners were under-trial prisoners who were accompanied by 1,345 children and 214 convicted prisoners who were accompanied by 246 children.

This data story aims to highlight statistics of women in prison.