Incarceration in the United States is one of the primary means of punishment for crime in the United States. In 2021, over five million people were under supervision by the criminal justice system, with nearly two million people incarcerated in state or federal prisons and local jails. The United States has the largest known prison population in the world. It has 5% of the world’s population while having 20% of the world’s incarcerated persons. China, with more than four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison. Prison populations grew dramatically beginning in the 1970s, but began a decline around 2009, dropping 25% by year-end 2021.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is responsible for all federal prisons and provides for the care, custody, and control of federal prisoners.
Prison rape commonly refers to the rape of inmates in prison by other inmates or prison staff. In 2001, Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 4.3 million inmates had been raped while incarcerated in the United States. A United States Department of Justice report, Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, states that "In 2011–12, an estimated 4.0% of state and federal prison inmates and 3.2% of jail inmates reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission to the facility, if less than 12 months." However, advocates dispute the accuracy of the numbers, saying they seem to under-report the real numbers of sexual assaults in prison, especially among juveniles.
Sodexo Justice Services, a subsidiary of Sodexo, is a private prison operator in the United Kingdom and several other countries. The company changed its name to Sodexo Justice Services in 2011.
USP Florence ADMAX is a United States federal prison in Fremont County, Colorado, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.
Prisoner abuse is the mistreatment of persons while they are under arrest or incarcerated. Prisoner abuse can include physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, torture, or other acts such as refusal of essential medication, and it can be perpetuated by either fellow inmates or prison faculty.
A prison cell is a small room in a prison or police station where a prisoner is held. Cells greatly vary by their furnishings, hygienic services, and cleanliness, both across countries and based on the level of punishment to which the prisoner being held has been sentenced. Cells can be occupied by one or multiple prisoners depending on factors that include, but are not limited to, inmate population, facility size, resources, or inmate behavior.
Aboriginal deaths in custody is a political and social issue in Australia. It rose in prominence in the early 1980s, with Aboriginal activists campaigning following the death of 16-year-old John Peter Pat in 1983. Subsequent deaths in custody, considered suspicious by families of the deceased, culminated in the 1987 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC).
The Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York is a temporarily closed United States federal administrative detention facility in the Civic Center of Lower Manhattan, New York City, located on Park Row behind the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse at Foley Square. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.
Santa Rita Jail is a county jail located in Dublin, Alameda County, California, and operated by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. With a design capacity of 3489, Santa Rita is one of the largest jails in the United States and larger than many California state prisons. The jail is adjacent to Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, on the Camp Parks Reserve Forces Training Area.
Pre-trial detention, also known as jail, preventive detention, provisional detention, or remand, is the process of detaining a person until their trial after they have been arrested and charged with an offence. A person who is on remand is held in a prison or detention centre or held under house arrest. Varying terminology is used, but "remand" is generally used in common law jurisdictions and "preventive detention" elsewhere. However, in the United States, "remand" is rare except in official documents and "jail" is instead the main terminology. Detention before charge is commonly referred to as custody and continued detention after conviction is referred to as imprisonment.
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment unparoled. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people face difficulties in prison such as increased vulnerability to sexual assault, other kinds of violence, and trouble accessing necessary medical care. While much of the available data on LGBTQ inmates comes from the United States, Amnesty International maintains records of known incidents internationally in which LGBTQ prisoners and those perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender have suffered torture, ill-treatment and violence at the hands of fellow inmates as well as prison officials.
Prisons in Ukraine are regulated by the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, a part of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.
Prisoner suicide is suicide by an inmate in a jail or prison.
Punishment in Australia arises when an individual has been accused or convicted of breaking the law through the Australian criminal justice system. Australia uses prisons, as well as community corrections. When awaiting trial, prisoners may be kept in specialised remand centres or within other prisons.
Prisons in India are overcrowded and eight of out ten prisoners in Indian jails await trial. There are 1319 prisons in India as of 2021. Currently, there are about 1400 prisons. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of prisoners increased 13% from 2020 to 2021, making over 80% of the prisons overcrowded. After the Supreme Court order, a number of prisoners were released in 2020 to decongest the jails, reducing the overall prison occupancy in 20 states and two Union Territories to a little over 93%. However, the occupancy rate increased to 130% again by 2021. About 63 unnatural deaths took place in Indian prisons. Among the major states, Tamil Nadu is the only state which has less than 100% occupancy followed by Karnataka.
People with mental illnesses are over-represented in jail and prison populations in the United States relative to the general population.
Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. 499 (2012), was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that an interrogation of a prisoner was not a custodial interrogation per se, and certainly it was not "clearly established federal law" that it was custodial, as would be required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). Instead, the Court said, whether the interrogation was custodial depended on the specific circumstances, and moreover, in the particular circumstances of this case, it was not custodial. This decision overturned the rule of the Sixth Circuit, and denied the prisoner's habeas corpus petition.
