THE PRISONS CRISIS OF PAKISTAN
Prison conditions in Pakistan fall significantly short of international standards, with inmates facing numerous systemic challenges, including severe overcrowding, unhygienic living conditions, insufficient access to clean water, nutritious food and healthcare, exploitative labour practices, limited contact with family and legal counsel, and a lack of effective complaint mechanisms.
Furthermore, prisons fail to provide adequate rehabilitative, educational, vocational or recreational activities, undermining the core objectives of incarceration. With a population of 102,026 inmates housed in 128 facilities across the four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Pakistan’s prison system operates under immense strain.
Encouragingly, the national prison population grew by only 1.66 percent from 2023. However, overcrowding remains a critical concern, with over three-quarters of the prison population still under trial (74,918 prisoners).
Since 2010, Punjab has constructed 13 new prisons, including district jails in Okara, Pakpattan, Layyah, Bhakkar and Rajanpur, as well as two high-security prisons in Sahiwal and Mianwali. Between 2010 and 2024, 140 new barracks and 928 additional death cells were also constructed, providing accommodation for over 4,000 inmates. These developments aimed to expand the authorised capacity to 37,563 inmates by 2024.
Pakistan’s prison system is at a breaking point, with over 102,000 inmates crammed into overcrowded, under-resourced facilities defined by a broken ‘rehabilitation’ system. A recent collaborative report by the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), the National Academy of Prison Administration (NAPA) and Justice Project Pakistan exposes the harsh realities and systemic failures of incarceration in the country and offers recommendations to help the country move towards a more just and humane correctional system…
However, persistent overcrowding, in spite of infrastructural additions, underscores systemic issues, such as ineffective bail and parole systems, prolonged judicial delays and an over-reliance on custodial measures.
Over-incarceration for drug-related offences further exacerbates the issue. Rigid sentencing guidelines introduced by the 2022 Amendment to the Control of Narcotics Substances Act 1997 (CNSA) have intensified the problem by eliminating parole, probation and remissions, leading to harsher and often disproportionate penalties.
For decades, multiple committees and working groups have been established to address the dire need for prison reforms in Pakistan, with a consistent focus on amending the outdated Pakistan Prison Rules. Recent initiatives include the Prime Minister’s Prisoners’ Aid Committee (2019), the Chief Minister’s Prison Reform Committees (2020 and 2022), the Ministry of Interior’s Committee for Prison Reform (2024), and the Chief Justice’s Prison Reform Committee (2024).
In November 2024, the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan proposed a National Jail Reform Policy, aligned with international standards to ensure humane and rehabilitative management of Pakistan’s prisons. These initiatives have consistently emphasised the urgent need to modernise Pakistan Prison Rules and align them with international standards.
Despite these recurring efforts, there has been no comprehensive review to revisit and evaluate the recommendations of previous committees or identify why they have not been implemented. This persistent failure to translate recommendations into action continues to hinder meaningful progress. While these reform initiatives offer hope for improvement, comprehensive judicial reform, alternative sentencing measures, and alignment of Pakistan Prison Rules with international standards remain crucial to addressing Pakistan’s deep-rooted prison crisis.
Rehabilitation and diversion programmes (diversion is an aspect of the criminal justice system that offers an alternative to traditional punitive measures) remain critically underutilised, with community service absent as an alternative sentencing option. Vulnerable groups, such as women, juveniles and individuals with psychosocial disabilities, continue to face inadequate protections.
To achieve meaningful reform, the urgent implementation of revised Prison Rules and alignment with international standards, such as the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules), the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners (Bangkok Rules), and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing Rules), are essential to addressing these enduring challenges and ensuring a humane and just penal system.
KEY TRENDS IN PAKISTAN’S PRISONS
On average, prisons in Pakistan are at 152.2 percent over-capacity, underscoring the strain on an already fragile system. Under-trial prisoners account for 73.41 percent of the total prison population, highlighting systemic inefficiencies such as ineffective bail and parole systems, prolonged judicial delays, and an over-reliance on pre-trial detention.
This represents a troubling increase from 2017, when under-trial prisoners made up 66 percent of the prison population — already far exceeding the global average of 27 percent at the time. The eight percent rise over eight years illustrates the persistence of these structural issues.
The 2022 CNSA, which aimed to streamline sentencing for drug offences, introduced harsher penalties for wider quantity thresholds, and eliminated the possibility of remissions, parole and probation for drug offenders, except for women and juveniles. Instead of alleviating overcrowding, it has contributed significantly to the problem. The rigid sentencing guidelines have eliminated alternatives to incarceration and directly led to disproportionate penalties, exacerbating the issue of over-incarceration.
The number of prisoners on death row also rose slightly in 2024, increasing by 1.17 percent to a total of 3,646 individuals. Despite the Control of Narcotics Substances (Amendment) Act 2023, which abolished the death penalty for drug-related offences, such offences remain a significant category for which death sentences are imposed. In Sindh alone, at least three death sentences for drug-related crimes were handed down in 2024, raising concerns about the inconsistent application of the amended law by the judiciary.
According to the latest figures, Pakistan’s prison system comprises 128 operational prisons with an official capacity of approximately 65,811 inmates. Despite some added infrastructural capacity, overcrowding, under-resourced facilities, and an excessive reliance on detention-centric penalties continue to characterise the country’s prison landscape.
Comprehensive reforms, including the adoption of alternative sentencing measures aligned with international standards, are essential to addressing these systemic challenges. These reforms must include community-based alternative sentencing options, such as community service, to alleviate overcrowding and provide more rehabilitative approaches to justice.
Overcrowding remains the most pressing concern in Pakistan’s prisons, fuelling a wide range of issues and human rights violations. Evidence-based strategies focused on reducing overcrowding, such as the operationalisation of non-custodial measures and judicial reforms, represent the most effective way to achieve meaningful and sustainable reform.
OVERCROWDING AND OVER-INCARCERATION
102,026 people are housed in 128 functioning jails across Pakistan including AJK and GB. With a nation-wide overcrowding rate of 152.2 percent — and some jails operating at 200-300 percent of their official capacity — these figures underscore the bleak conditions faced by incarcerated individuals in Pakistan.
There are 128 functional prisons, with the highest number of jails in Punjab at 43 prisons.
Four functioning prisons are specifically designated for women. Of the four, three functioning facilities are situated in Sindh, at Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur, and one in Multan, Punjab. Otherwise, women are housed in separate barracks within male prisons.
There are five functioning facilities for juveniles, including Youth Offenders Industrial School (YOIS) and Borstal Institutes or Juvenile Reformatory Centres. Of the five, two juvenile facilities are located in Punjab in Faisalabad and Bahawalpur, and three are in Sindh, situated in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur.
Punjab jails are operating at 173.6 percent of their capacity, Sindh at 161.42 percent, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) at 102.50 percent, while Balochistan operates at 115.60 percent of its capacity.
SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF UNDER-TRIAL DETAINEES
In every province, the number of under-trial prisoners exceeds the number of convicted inmates. Measures to address overcrowding have included the establishment of a parole and probation service in Punjab, the introduction of a new Offender Management System, and the construction of additional jails. In Punjab, four new jails with a combined capacity of 2,268 inmates have been commissioned.
However, the province currently holds 61,813 prisoners in facilities designed for only 37,217, highlighting the stark inadequacy of these measures. Building more jails, while costly and often ineffective, is unlikely to resolve the underlying issues driving Pakistan’s rising prison populations.
Unless urgent steps are taken to reverse the trends of overcrowding and rising prison populations, Pakistan will remain unable to house prisoners in accordance with international human rights standards. Measures to address overcrowding must include the decriminalisation of poverty-related offences, the operationalisation of parole and probation systems and the adoption of non-custodial sentencing options for minor offences.
Community-based alternative sentencing, such as community service, should be prioritised as a rehabilitative approach. Additionally, persons with psychosocial disabilities should be diverted to mental health facilities, while individuals charged under the Control of Narcotics Substances Act for drug dependence should receive treatment rather than incarceration.
Notably, in its 2022 state report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Government of Pakistan stated that pre-trial detention is used solely as an exceptional measure, primarily in terrorism-related cases.
Both the UN Standard Minimum Rules for Non-Custodial Measures (Tokyo Rules) and the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders (Bangkok Rules) emphasise the importance of alternatives to incarceration, particularly at the pre-trial stage.
International law underscores that pre-trial detention should only be used when absolutely necessary and based on reasonable suspicion. Its overuse, as seen in Pakistan, exacerbates prison overcrowding and increases the risk of human rights violations.
INADEQUACY OF NON-CUSTODIAL MEASURES
In 2019, Punjab enacted the Probation and Parole Services Act, to facilitate the conditional release of eligible prisoners. However, the implementation of probation services has been severely hindered by chronic underfunding and understaffing, limiting its effectiveness in addressing prison overcrowding.
As of 2024, Punjab has 53 probation officers, including 13 women, managing approximately 36,015 probationers — 190 of whom are women and 247 of whom are juveniles. The province also employs 17 parole officers, including one woman. In 2024, only seven prisoners were released on parole. While Punjab supervises approximately 45,000 individuals through probation, indicating significant reliance on this measure compared to other provinces, the number of parolees remains relatively low across all provinces, highlighting the underutilisation of parole as a rehabilitative avenue.
In Sindh, as of 2024, five male and 14 female probation officers oversee around 590 probationers, including nine women. However, no prisoners were released on parole during the year, underscoring the limited impact of these mechanisms.
KP, as of 2024, employs 37 probation officers, including six women, supervising 7,183 probationers — 6,989 males, 36 females and 158 juveniles. Additionally, the province recorded the highest parole usage, with 1,605 prisoners released on parole in 2024.
Nevertheless, the existing parole and probation systems remain grossly inadequate in addressing the severe levels of overcrowding in Pakistan’s prisons. Moreover, the absence of community service as a recognised alternative to punishment further limits the potential for non-custodial sentencing options. Incorporating community service into the penal framework, alongside strengthening probation and parole systems, is essential to alleviate overcrowding and ensure more effective rehabilitation measures.
A GROWING DEATH ROW POPULATION
Following a period where Pakistan executed 516 people from 2014 to 2019, there have been no executions in Pakistan since December 2019. Despite this, the number of individuals on death row, which had significantly decreased during this period, has started to rise again, albeit slightly. In 2023, there were 3,604 inmates sentenced to death, and this number increased to 3,646 in 2024.
In 2023, there were 3,604 prisoners on death row, with women comprising 0.7 percent of those sentenced to death. In 2024, the death row population increased by 1.17 percent reaching a total of 3,646 prisoners.
In 2014, a special Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, cleared thousands of pending criminal appeals, resulting in a drastic decrease of Pakistan’s death row numbers from 7,164 in 2012 to the lowest point at 2,976 in 2020. However, the recent upward trend points to the need for further judicial, legislative and administrative interventions to prevent further escalation.
While the provincial high courts are required to automatically review death sentences, an overburdened judiciary significantly delays the appeals process. This often results in prolonged periods of incarceration for defendants awaiting decisions on their appeals. Without targeted training for the judiciary on the stringent evidentiary standards established in Justice Khosa’s jurisprudence, as well as requirements under international human rights law and Pakistan’s treaty obligations, addressing the rise in death row numbers remains a formidable challenge.
PRISON CONDITIONS
Pakistan’s prison conditions are characterised by severe overcrowding, insufficient food, inadequate medical care, and unsanitary conditions.
Neglect, deteriorating infrastructure, extremely poor sanitation and limited resources contribute to the inhumane living conditions that define the grim reality of Pakistan’s prisons.
Some cells designed for three people hold as many as 15 inmates, forcing prisoners to sleep in shifts due to the lack of floor space. A former death row prisoner from the District Jail in Mandi Bahauddin described the grim conditions: “Our cell was five feet wide and eight feet long. There is also a shower. It is very hard to sleep, since there were six other people. One’s foot would be touching someone’s head.”
These conditions not only expose inmates to significant human rights violations but also fail to meet international standards set by the UN Human Rights Committee. During Pakistan’s most recent review under the ICCPR in October 2024, the Committee raised serious concerns about overcrowding and inadequate access to food, clean water, sanitation, feminine hygiene products, and healthcare in prisons. Additionally, the Committee expressed significant concern over the widespread use of prolonged pre-trial detention, which continues to exacerbate the challenges within Pakistan’s prison system.
Overcrowded prison conditions result in inadequate food, water, sanitation, heating, ventilation, lighting and medical care. Prisoners lack access to clean water, adequate bedding and nutritious food, often relying on external family support or commissary purchases.
Field visits conducted by Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) to Central Jail Rawalpindi revealed alarming conditions among prisoners repatriated from Sri Lanka. Of the 51 male prisoners interviewed, 50 reported a lack of proper bedding or designated sleeping quarters. Disturbingly, all prisoners, including the sick and elderly, were subjected to long working hours with no consideration for their age or health.
NEED FOR UPDATED PRISON ADMINISTRATION FRAMEWORK
Punjab, home to 60.7 percent of the incarcerated population, operates under outdated prison rules from 1978 that fail to align with international standards. Efforts to revise these rules have repeatedly stalled. Two committees for prison reform, notified in 2020 and 2022, proposed amendments to over 12,000 provisions of the Prison Rules 1978, in line with international standards. However, the Draft Punjab Prison Rules 2020 and the revised Punjab Prison Rules 2022 remain unadopted by the Government of Punjab.
In its landmark ruling in the case of ‘Safia Bano vs Home Department’, the Supreme Court directed authorities to harmonise prison manuals across all provinces.
The Draft Punjab Prison Rules 2020 and the revised Punjab Prison Rules 2022, which provide increased protections for prisoners with psychosocial disabilities, as well as an improved framework for their access to adequate care in line with the UN Minimum Standards, have yet to be passed by the Punjab Government and there have been no attempts to incorporate these revisions to the Pakistan Prison Rules 1978 at the federal level.
The Ministry of Interior’s Prison Reforms Committee is currently reviewing recommendations from its provincial counterparts to revise and harmonise the Pakistan Prison Rules, aligning them with international standards at the federal level. It is imperative that these efforts result in the Punjab government expediting its rule adoption and the federal government enacting unified, updated prison regulations that address systemic failures and comply with Pakistan’s international obligations.
PREVIOUS PRISON REFORM EFFORTS
Some provincial authorities have revised the legal framework for the administration of prisons. Sindh revised its legal framework with the Sindh Prisons and Corrections Services Act 2019 and KP amended its prison rules with the Prisons Amendment Act 2020, aligning them more closely with international standards. However, Punjab, Balochistan, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan continue to lag behind.
Over the past five years, several committees have been established to evaluate prison conditions and recommend reforms. In 2019, the Islamabad High Court established a commission headed by the federal Minister for Human Rights to investigate prison conditions and propose solutions. The commission’s report suggested measures to improve prison administration.
In the same year, then-prime minister Imran Khan constituted the Prime Minister’s Prisoners Reforms Committee (PPAC) chaired by Senator Barrister Syed Ali Zafar. The committee recommended amending bail provisions to reduce under-trial prisoner populations, particularly in cases with sentences of less than three years.
In March 2020, a working group was formed by the chief minister of Punjab to review the Pakistan Prison Rules 1978 and propose amendments in line with the UN Minimum Standards. The proposed amendments included updates such as chapters on prison health staff, psychologists, welfare officers, care for female, juvenile and mentally ill prisoners, staff training, and complaint redressals. However, these revised rules remained unapproved.
In May 2020, a committee was formed to “study and investigate the plight of women in Pakistan’s prisons” by the then-prime minister, and chaired by the federal Minister for Human Rights. On August 26, 2020, the committee released its report, recommending revision of the Prison Rules, a reduction of the under-trial prison population, the development of diversion methods and rehabilitation of prisoners, and addressing individual cases of human rights abuse.
In 2022, the Punjab chief minister constituted a committee to bring about reforms in prisons in Punjab. The committee proposed adopting the Draft Punjab Prison Rules prepared by the earlier committee.
In April 2024, the Ministry of Interior established the National Committee for Prison Reforms to overhaul the Prison Rules 1978, in line with international standards like the Bangkok and Mandela Rules. The committee’s mandate includes revising regulations for minor offences and pre-trial detention to reduce overcrowding, digitising prison data, enabling audits by the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), and proposing legislative reforms to modernise prison management.
In November 2024, Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi launched a comprehensive jail reform initiative to develop a National Jail Reform Policy, aligned with international standards.
The effort focuses on addressing severe overcrowding, particularly in Punjab, and tackling prolonged under-trial detention through alternative sentencing options like community service and probation. A sub-committee was formed to inspect Punjab’s jails and recommend reforms, including strategies to reduce overcrowding, improve inmate welfare, and introduce vocational training, mental health support, and educational programs for rehabilitation.
However, despite multiple efforts to reform Pakistan’s prison management, the persistent failure to implement recommendations has rendered most initiatives ineffective. Several committees proposed revisions to the Pakistan Prison Rules but their adoption has continuously been stalled. Rather than building up on past efforts, each new committee starts afresh, wasting valuable time and resources. Passing these long-overdue revisions must be prioritised as the foundational step before embarking on further reforms.
Excerpted with permission from the report ‘Pakistan’s Prison Landscape: Trends, Data and Developments in 2024’ published by the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), the National Academy of Prison Administration (NAPA) and the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP)
Published in Dawn, EOS, February 23rd, 2025