Over the first 15 years of this century, prison populations have increased in size in most parts of the world, albeit rates of increase have varied widely, and some countries have seen a decline in prisoner numbers.

Prison population trends worldwide and by continent

In the year 2000, the total prison population worldwide stood at about 8.7 million. Since then, the global prison population has increased by around one fifth to its current total of almost 10.4 million. Over the 15 years since 2000, Europe’s total prison population has declined overall and Oceania’s has grown the fastest (while still comprising only a negligible proportion of the total prison population). Figure 4.1 makes clear these contrasting levels of change in the world and continental prison populations.

It should be noted that the worldwide prison population total for the year 2000, cited above, is an aggregation of national prison population numbers for the year 2000 or the nearest available year. As in the preceding chapters, the numbers shown in this chapter as ‘current’ (including in Figures 4.1–4.4) are based on World Prison Brief data as of November 2015, and vary by jurisdiction as to the specific dates to which they refer. Also as elsewhere, the trends data in this chapter do not include prisoners in Eritrea, North Korea and Somalia, and the figures for China include sentenced prisoners only.

The percentage change in the size of the prison population in each continent and worldwide is shown in Figure 4.2. These levels of change should be viewed in the context of general population growth, statistics for which are also included in this figure. Thus we see here, for example, that the 20% increase in the world’s total prison population is a slightly higher rate of increase than that in the world’s general population (18%). The growth in the size of the prison population in the Americas and in Oceania, at around 41% and 59% respectively, outstrips population growth in those continents, while the 21% decline in the European prison population total is against a background of relatively slow growth (3%) in the general population.

Figure 4.3 reveals the disproportionate impact that some individual jurisdictions have on continent-wide levels of change in prison population numbers in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.