Prison overcrowding in India is truly the story of overwhelming apathy

More than half the jails are overcrowded, says India Justice Report, 2025

- BY TANISHKA GOSWAMI, SHIKHAR AGGARWAL

Man is not made better by being degraded. In Mohd. Giasuddin v. State of A.P. (1977), Justice Krishna Iyer famously remarked: "Our prisons should be correctional houses, not cruel iron aching the soul.

In this backdrop, the Supreme Court has emphasised over the years (Inhuman Conditions In 1382 Prisons, In re (2017)) that the fundamental right to a life of dignity under Article 21 can be guaranteed to prisoners only when prisons are reformational institutions. As recently as January this year, the Court in State of Jharkhand v. Vikash Tiwary yet again pressed on the evolving role of prisons from merely deterrent and retributive mechanisms to correctional and rehabilitative one.

The India Justice Report, 2025, notes that more than half the jails in India are overcrowded, with nearly 176 prisons housing as many inmates as four times their sanctioned capacity. This is exacerbated by the fact that undertrials constitute 75 percent of the prison population (with several having served more time in jail without trial than the maximum period of imprisonment they may have had to serve).

Is any meaningful 'rehabilitation' possible in such overcrowded, congested, mostly unfunded/resource-less spaces for any first time offender, let alone a hardened criminal? After all, the average Indian continues to believe that more prisons and greater proactivity towards arrests, detention, and harsher punishments will address the menace of rising crimes.