A new Guidance
Note I’ve written, with Helen Fair, for the Institute for Crime &
Justice Policy Research at Birkbeck (ICPR) is encouraging countries around the
world to collect and publish more and better data about their prisons and the
people locked up in them.
ICPR’s World Prison Brief has for almost 25 years collated information on prison
populations and occupancy rates but many countries don’t themselves routinely
make the numbers publicly available. In
the 56 countries of the Commonwealth, only 13 prison services regularly publish
figures online although data in many others is sporadically reported in news
media or official reports.
Frequently updated statistical information enables
authorities and civil society to monitor trends and assess the effectiveness
and costs of criminal justice policies. It contributes to public scrutiny of
conditions particularly for vulnerable prisoners and informs strategies to
address racial disparities and to reform prisons. Good quality data can also prompt broader questions
about the differential use of prisons within and between countries. Why for example does the percentage of
pre-trial detainees vary from 70% in Nigeria’s prisons to 11% in Ghana’s?
Almost all prisons collect administrative data about the
people in them for case management purposes, and provided that safeguards are
in place, converting this personal data into anonymised aggregated statistics
should be relatively straightforward.
Some countries do it very well. India’s National Prisons Information Portal updates the numbers of prisoners in
each state every 4 hours. Yet other countries, particularly those with limited
resources, struggle to collate information without electronic systems, reliable
internet, online platforms for sharing data, or trained staff to operate data
systems.
Logistical and practical barriers seem to prevent publication
more than a lack of political will. Sometimes the problem is a lack of
procedural transparency: for example where prison administrations say that data
is available on request, but it is unclear how requests should be made or
handled.
The Guidance Note recommends that every country should use an
electronic database to produce anonymised statistics, with a reliable
methodology for their compilation and arrangements for data governance and
protection, developed where possible in cooperation with the national statistics
authority.
As for publication, countries are recommended to publish Core
Data monthly on a website. This encompasses the number of types of people in
prison on any one day, receptions and releases over time, and prison capacity
(with details on how this is calculated). The Guidance includes a template for
prison systems to use for this purpose.
The Core Data is very much a floor not a ceiling: countries
that can should aim to publish more. Some high income countries release additional
statistics about incidents in prison, staffing, and costs. Some also release
detailed data about the types of offences for which people are held in prison
and how long they have been on remand. This can help inform initiatives to
ensure that prison is not used unnecessarily and that steps are taken to
release people who can be released on bail or have reached the end of their
sentence.
Since accurate statistics are so important to ensure prison
is used as a last resort and for the shortest possible time, the Guidance Note
suggests that international agencies and donors should consider how best to
equip relevant countries with the resources, technology, know-how and training
to introduce a suitable data collection system. Better quality prisons data and
transparency should also be a priority for consideration at the 15th United
Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in 2026.
In her recent report on current issues in prison management, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on
Torture recommended that prison authorities report accurately and regularly on detention
conditions and overcrowding levels to policy and decision makers and monitoring
bodies. It’s to be hoped that this
Guidance Note will prove helpful in enabling them to do so.