Half a million Indians behind bars, 74% still awaiting trial

The proportion of undertrials has reduced from 76% in 2022 to 74%, the NCRB report shows. By April 2025, the number of undertrials had reduced by 2.5% but the proportion remained the same, indicating a further drop in the number of overall prisoners. Even among women prisoners, around 74% were undertrial.

India’s prisons capacity grew by 0.6% with a net addition of two jails, and the total number of prisoners has reduced by 7.5%, thereby reducing the severity of prison overcrowding 131% to 121%, according 2023 Prisons Statistics India data. The reduction in prison population could be attributed partly to the UTRC recommendations for prisoner release.

In 2023, the occupancy rate among women prisoners was the lowest at 70% compared to male (125%) and transgender (96%) prisoners. Of 1,332 prisons in the country, 35 were designated as ‘women jails’. Of the 21,510 female inmates in various prisons, only one in five were in women’s jails. While capacity of women jails increased by 26.7% between 2018 and 2023, the population of women inmates has increased by 32%, said the report.

A 2024 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report estimated that 11.5 million people were detained globally in 2022, 5.5% more than a decade ago. In southern Asia, the proportion of unsentenced prisoners to all prisoners rose from 52% in 2012 to 63% in 2022. Globally, India is ranked 95 in terms of prison occupancy, according to World Prison Brief, but has amongst the highest proportions of undertrial prisoners.

Uttar Pradesh (18.8%), Bihar (11.9%) and Maharashtra (8.3%) remain the states with the most undertrials. As in previous years, two in three undertrials belong to Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Released in September, the 2023 data have come two years after the release of the previous edition. In December 2024, IndiaSpend had reported on the delays in releasing crucial datasets including the NCRB’s data on prisons and its impact on policy decisions.

Most undertrials are young and have not completed school

At 389,910, the year 2023 reported the lowest number of undertrials since the Covid pandemic. As we said earlier, 49% of 384,743 Indian undertrial prisoners are between 18 and 30 years which was similar to 2022 where it was 1 percentage point higher. A decade ago in 2013, their proportion was 47%; during this period it has remained between 47% and 50% each year.

India’s prison population rate is 38 per 100,000, but youth incarceration rate for those between 18-30 years is higher at 51, our analysis shows.

The UNODC report said that the disproportionate use of pre-trial detention was a major contributor to prison overcrowding and the associated deterioration of prison conditions in many countries.

Younger people are prone to risk-taking behaviour as they are in the process of finding their path to life, and is a reason why the youth are highly overrepresented in criminal justice and prison statistics, Vijay Raghavan, professor, Centre for Criminology and Justice at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and project director of TISS’s Prayas.

“When young undertrials are from poor socio-economic and educational backgrounds, their life chances get reduced. They end up spending more time in prison due to poor social support and may get pulled into a life of crime, which impacts not only them but their families as well,” he said. “Longer periods of imprisonment can also affect their health including mental health.”

Adding to prison woes is the socioeconomic circumstance of undertrials. Nearly two in three undertrials in India are educated below grade X or were illiterate. Their educational background also implies that many of the young prisoners are from financially weak families, and data show that many belong to oppressed caste communities.

Often, it has consequences on their access to proper legal aid and ability to post bail, as IndiaSpend reported in March 2023. Free legal aid is a constitutional right but the quality of legal services has been a challenge for prisoners, due to which prisoners prefer private lawyers. UTRC data for April 2025 show that 56% of 9,079 prisoners recommended for release were represented by private lawyers.

The UTRC has district-level committees headed by the judicial and police heads and District Legal Services Authority as members. The committee reviews cases of prisoners and ensures they are not subjected to prolonged detention.

In 2023, the government launched a poor prisoners bail scheme for those languishing in jail unable to pay for bail/surety. IndiaSpend’s 2024 analysis based on RTI responses from six states on the scheme showed that the impact was low. Between 2023 and July 2025, 144 prisoners have been provided financial support for bail through the scheme and Rs 29 lakh has been spent, the government told the Parliament, indicating that the scheme is yet to be efficiently implemented.

Half of the undertrials in jail for three months to two years

Half of India’s undertrials had spent between three months and two years in prison–in line with the trend since 2013. In comparison, in the European Union, the average length of pretrial detention varied from 2.4 months to 12.9 months.

According to the UTRC data for April 2025, 55% of the 9,079 prisoners recommended were released. More than 12,700 prisoners were identified for release. Experts had told IndiaSpend that there were challenges like ad hoc identification process and lack of proper guideline in the review mechanism despite it being efficient.

According to Raghavan, the UTRC recommendations are not binding on a trial court magistrate or judge who makes the final decision. “Courts are reluctant to release poor people on Personal Recognizance bond or on cash bail as they feel that these prisoners will abscond and affect the court’s disposal rate.”

SC, ST and OBC are overrepresented in prisons

Caste remains a fault line in India which determines an individual’s access to resources, education, health, and wider social capital. A majority of the undertrials in India continue to be from the SC, ST and OBC communities.

In 2023, 31% of undertrials were SC and ST. This is higher than the overall proportion of their population in India. In many states, the SC undertrial population is higher than the proportion of the state’s SC population. In UP and Bihar, which have the highest number of undertrial prisoners, the proportion of SC prisoners is higher than the share of the states’ SC population. In Delhi it was higher by nearly 5 percentage points.

But in terms of asset ownership or wealth, SCs and STs own less. For example, the 2015-16 agricultural census shows that SCs and STs combined had 20% of the agricultural operational holdings. This has been further corroborated by research on caste mobility of different groups and wealth gap between caste groups.

Caste prejudices and over-policing of certain communities are important social factors behind the significant presence of marginalised caste groups in jails, we had reported in September 2020.

A recent study by Common Cause and Lokniti – Centre for the Study Developing Societies on policing attitudes has shown that police bias against Dalits varies by state. In Gujarat, 17% of police personnel thought that they were naturally prone to committing crime to a “great extent” while 16% thought so in Assam. In Kerala no police personnel was reported to.

SCs, STs, Denotified and Nomadic Tribes and members from minority communities tend to get excluded from public goods like access to good education and healthcare and these are the same communities that have a higher representation in the prison population including undertrials, said Raghavan. “This is an indication of the fact that lack of access to opportunities to improve one’s life chances can lead people into negative lifestyles or they may become victims of prejudice and bias against them by the criminal justice system and civil society.”

There are similarities along racial lines in the US. According to a Pew analysis for 595 jails, as of 2022, Black people were admitted to jail at more than four times the rate of White people and stayed in jail for 12 more days on average, contributing to the larger increase in population observed for Black individuals.

IndiaSpend has written to the home ministry for comments on high prison congestion, undertrial population and youth representation and the cash bail scheme. We will update if we receive a response.

(The article is an Indiaspend.org story. Indiaspend.org is a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit)