Incarceration in the United States is one of the primary means of punishment for crime in the United States. In 2023, over five million people are 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. Prison populations grew dramatically beginning in the 1970s, but began a decline around 2009, dropping 25% by year-end 2021.
Tihar Prisons, also called Tihar Jail and Tihar Ashram, is a prison complex in India and one of the largest complex of prisons in India. It has 9 functional prisons spread over more than 400 acres. Run by Department of Delhi Prisons, Government of Delhi, the prison contains nine central prisons, and is one of the three prison complexes in Delhi. The other two prison complexes are at Rohini and Mandoli with one and six central prisons respectively. Tihar prison complex is located in Janakpuri, approximately 3 km from Tihar village in West Delhi.
Penal labour is a term for various kinds of forced labour that prisoners are required to perform, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence involving penal labour have included involuntary servitude, penal servitude, and imprisonment with hard labour. The term may refer to several related scenarios: labour as a form of punishment, the prison system used as a means to secure labour, and labour as providing occupation for convicts. These scenarios can be applied to those imprisoned for political, religious, war, or other reasons as well as to criminal convicts.
Elmira Correctional Facility, also known as "The Hill", is a maximum security state prison located in Chemung County, in the City of Elmira in the US state of New York. It is operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. A supermax prison, Southport Correctional Facility, is located 2 miles (3.2 km) away from Elmira.
The Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin is a low-security United States federal prison for female inmates in Dublin, California. The facility also has an adjacent satellite prison camp housing minimum-security female offenders.
A prison uniform is a set of standardized clothing worn by prisoners. It usually includes visually distinct clothes worn to indicate the wearer is a prisoner, in clear distinction from civil clothing.
An open prison is any jail in which the prisoners are trusted to complete sentences with minimal supervision and perimeter security and are often not locked up in their prison cells. Prisoners may be permitted to take up employment while serving their sentence. This provides an opportunity for criminals to reintegrate into society and withdrawal from their criminal behavior. Without the constraints and stresses of typical incarcerations, criminals can discover more positive lifestyles through support and light supervision from the criminal justice system. Open prisons provide the opportunity for prisoners to increase their mental health and opportunity for employment. Some scholars have pointed out that new forms of “pains of imprisonment” can arise within open prisons, due to the stresses of “liberty under constraint.”
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are confined against their will and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state, generally as punishment for various crimes. Authorities most commonly use prisons within a criminal-justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those who have pled or been found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment.
The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) is the agency responsible for incarceration of convicted felons in the state of Alabama in the United States. It is headquartered in the Alabama Criminal Justice Center in Montgomery.
Article 27 of the Panamanian constitution declares that the prison system of Panama is based on the principles of security, rehabilitation, and the protection of society. Provisions have been made to establish training programs designed to teach skills and trades that will afford prisoners the opportunity of reentering society as useful citizens after they complete their sentence. The same article also prohibits physical, mental, and moral abuse of prisoners. Juvenile offenders who are sentenced by a court are cared for in a special system that provides protection and education and attempts to rehabilitate them before they came of age. Women are also segregated in the penal system.
Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility is a California state prison located in unincorporated southern San Diego County, California, near San Diego. It is a part of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. It is a 780-acre (320 ha) facility. It is the only state prison in San Diego County.
Central Jail Faisalabad is a jail in Faisalabad, Pakistan located on Jaranwala road nearly 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of Faisalabad city.
New Central Jail Bahawalpur is a jail in Bahawalpur, Pakistan located on Jail Road nearly one kilometer toward east of the Radio Pakistan Bahawalpur. In September 2006, four members of the same family, including one father, his two sons and one brother, were hanged to death in this jail. The jail has been declared as Model Jail by the Government of the Punjab, Home Department in the year 2010.
Central Prison and Correctional Home, Thiruvananthapuram, also known as "Poojappura Central Jail", or "Central Prison, Poojappura", is a jail in Poojappura in Thiruvananthapuram in the Indian state of Kerala. It was established in1886 as a part of Travancore It is one of three Kerala prisons along with Kannur and Thrissur. These institutions confine convicts sentenced to above 6 months. Indicted suspects are accommodated in central prisons, if nearby jails are overcrowded.
Yerwada Central Jail is a noted high-security prison in Yerwada, Pune in Maharashtra. This is the largest prison in the state of Maharashtra, and also one of the largest prisons in South Asia, housing over 5,000 prisoners (2017) spread over various barracks and security zones, besides an open jail just outside its premises. Many well known nationalist fighters individuals including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have been jailed here.
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 per cent from 2020 to 2021, making over 80 per cent of the prisons overcrowded. After the Supreme Court order, a number of prisoners were release in 2020 to decongest the jails reducing the overall prison occupancy in 20 states and two Union Territories to a little over 93 per cent. However, the occupancy rate increased to 130 per cent 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 per cent occupancy followed by Karnataka.
Penal labor in the United States is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Annually, incarcerated workers provide at least $9 billion in services to the prison system and produce more than $2 billion in goods. The industry underwent many transitions throughout the late 19th and early and mid 20th centuries. Legislation such as the Hawes-Cooper Act of 1929 placed limitations on the trade of prison-made goods. Federal establishment of the Federal Prison Industries (FPI) in 1934 revitalized the prison labor system following the Great Depression. Increases in prison labor participation began in 1979 with the formation of the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP). The PIECP is a federal program first authorized under the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979. Approved by Congress in 1990 for indefinite continuation, the program legalizes the transportation of prison-made goods across state lines and allows prison inmates to earn market wages in private sector jobs that can go towards tax deductions, victim compensation, family support, and room and board.
Niwar is a coarse, narrow, thick tape that was initially made of cotton only. Niwar is a textile product produced on tape looms and classified as a narrow-width fabric. Baden Henry Powell referred to it as "broad coarse tape", a product of the jail industry. In his book Handbook of the Manufactures and Arts of the Punjab, Powell classified niwar under the category of "tape, string, and miscellaneous cotton products". A weaver of this tape is called a niwar-baf.
