More prisons, further away: a closer look at the expanding global prison estate

This article was edited on 25 July 2022 to add the editor’s note marked *. 

Global Prison Trends 2022 highlighted significant investment in new or expanding prison facilities in many countries, often as a result of rising prison populations and corresponding prison overcrowding, with new prison constructions increasing in scale as well as geographical remoteness.

In the first of our new blog series examining trends identified in the report, Edith Riegler delves deeper and explores issues around prison planning and location.

Global Prison Trends 2022 revealed that at least 24 countries across the globe announced plans for or initiated the construction of new prison facilities – in 2021 alone – amounting to at least 437,000 additional spaces. This includes countries of all geographical regions and with varying prison population sizes. However, these figures are likely a conservative estimate, as for many countries, information on the plans for new prisons, and especially their location and prospective capacity are not published by governmental bodies, prison authorities or other official state agents. When information regarding prison construction plans is available to the public, this is often through reporting by monitoring bodies, human rights and non-governmental organisations and newspapers. The obfuscated nature of this information also renders it difficult to verify – reflecting the opacity and dearth of reliable information on penal policy in general.

One reason for countries to initiate new prison construction is to improve conditions of imprisonment where existing facilities are old or dilapidated. This is common in Europe and a welcomed development, assuming the old facilities will be closed, with people transferred to the new buildings, rather than using them to expand the prison estate.

However, the most common reason for building new prisons globally is to contend with overcrowding, despite clear evidence that building more prisons is not a long-term solution to overcrowding. Turkey, for example, accounts for over half of the new prison spaces announced in 2021, despite already building at least 131 new prisons since 2016. As the country continues to have the highest imprisonment rate among Council of Europe member states, are we to expect a never-ending expansion of prison capacity? In Turkey and elsewhere, the investment in new prisons would be better spent on addressing the increasing and over-use of imprisonment and length of sentences, as well as the root causes of offending.

A different and worrying approach to address overcrowding taken by some countries is to outsource imprisonment – i.e., people sentenced to imprisonment by one jurisdiction are transferred to serve their sentence in another, often located far away from their homes. For example, Denmark is planning to rent 300 prison cells in Kosovo and the Netherlands has been renting prison spaces to Belgium and Norway already for some years.* A proposal has also been tabled in Albania to house Albanian nationals held in UK prisons, in order to free up prison space in the UK (Albanian nationals represent the largest share of foreign nationals (around 10%) in UK prisons).

Evidently, prison population growth and overcrowding are not present everywhere to the same extent, as some countries are seeing a decrease in the use of imprisonment and thus a surplus in prison spaces. The Netherlands, for example, are also closing down some of their facilities, due to their prison population steadily shrinking for some years. Last year the President of El Salvador announced plans to close three prisons in urban areas, to be demolished and replaced by cultural and educational facilities. Similarly, in the US, officials have announced that New York is closing six prisons as the state’s prison population continues to decline, being now less than half of what it was in 1999.

Trends on imprisonment and prison facilities are also often not uniform across a certain jurisdiction and prison constructions versus prison closures are often concentrated in geographical spaces of a certain nature – i.e., often, there is a notable urban/rural divide. For example, in the US, jail populations in urban centres have been generally decreasing in the last two decades, the same cannot be said for jail populations in rural areas. According to the VERA institute, about half of all people held in jails in the US, are held in small cities and rural areas.

The reasons for this divide are manifold – one contributing factor is that when prisons are constructed in remote locations without much pre-existing infrastructure, often towns are formed around these prisons. Prisons may also be constructed near towns with dying industries, which rely heavily economically on the prison being there. Typically, prisons are considered ‘locally unwanted land uses (LULUs)’, meaning they are undesired constructions for their perceived negative outcomes. However, particularly in the US South, but also in other places, rural towns rely on prisons for their economic value. For example, the rural community in Susanville in California flourished due to a prison having been built there with many of the town’s adults being employed by the prison and its industry. However, many of the people detained in such rural prisons do not actually come from the surrounding town but from urban centres, sometimes far away, making it difficult and expensive for their families to visit them.

prisons which are located far away from urban centres may be inaccessible to visitors and offer fewer services

The rural dimension of prison geography has consequences for conditions of imprisonment. As outlined in Global Prison Trends 2022, prisons which are located far away from urban centres may be inaccessible to visitors (lawyers, families, prison monitors, etc.) and may also offer fewer or lower quality healthcare, rehabilitation and education services. Such restrictions can affect the wellbeing of people in prison and indeed their likelihood of recidivism. Research from the UK has shown that a person who receives visits from family is 39% less likely to reoffend compared to one who does not and being encouraged to take on parental roles and responsibilities can provide a sense of identity.

Rural prisons in some parts of the world can face additional challenges from extreme weather and natural disasters. The vulnerability of people in prison is significantly exacerbated by the location of prisons, which are often constructed on cheap land or land that is known to at risk of natural hazards, making it challenging to reach them and deliver important resources in the face of disasters. For instance, in Peru, 46% of the total prison population lives in departments that account for 56% of emergencies.  In 2007, a massive earthquake in Peru sank parts of a prison that was built on the sandy soil of a desert on its southern coast, breaking walls, ceiling lights and doors. Challapalca prison in southern Peru is situated at an altitude of 4,600 metres – the highest altitude prison in the world. The location is harsh, with extreme weather and often freezing temperatures and not easily accessible for relatives, lawyers or medical services. In the Philippines too, facilities are located in areas prone to earthquakes and flooding, and multiple prisons have been destroyed by natural disasters over the years.

Do these trends reflect the situation for prisons in your country? PRI is collecting information on prison construction, planning and location, and we invite your input and feedback. Contact tlenihan@penalreform.org.

*[Editor’s note: the prison agreement between the Netherlands and Norway ended on 31 August 2018, and was not renewed.]