Sovereign rows of the World Prison Brief “Prison population per 100,000 of the national population” series via Our World in Data. Top 30 by most recent year. Aggregates excluded.
Chart ready. Press play to start.
How to use this chart
Play/Pause starts and stops the year-by-year animation, the year slider jumps to any year, and the speed selector (0.5×, 1×, 2×) changes playback speed. Each year shows the top 12 entries out of the 30 held in the dataset.
About this ranking
About this metric. “Prison Population Rate by Country (Time Series)” reformats data published by Our World in Data (mostly re-published World Bank / UN public statistics) (OWID Grapher slug “prison-population-rate”). Values are expressed in per 100,000 population.
What to watch. The United States holding around 700 prisoners per 100,000 — several times the Western European norm of roughly 100 — is the constant to watch. This chart maps sentencing policy, not crime: pair it with the homicide ranking to see how far the two diverge.
Caveats. Counts depend on what each country includes — pre-trial detainees, juveniles, political prisoners — and authoritarian states may under-report. A high rate reflects how freely a justice system uses incarceration, not how dangerous the streets are.
Trends in the data
The most dramatic movement in this table is El Salvador’s. It went from 132 per 100,000 in 2000 to 572 in 2020, a 4.3× rise over twenty years, and then jumped to 1,659 in 2024. A rate of 1,659 per 100,000 means roughly one resident in sixty is incarcerated. The series has no values for 2021 to 2023, however, so the chart cannot show when or how quickly the increase happened. That stretch is drawn as a single straight line between 2020 and 2024, and should be read with that in mind.
The United States, long described as the world leader, ranks fifth among these 30 countries. It peaked at 755 per 100,000 in 2008 and fell steadily to 505 by 2020, a 33% decline from the peak. It recovered slightly to 542 in 2023, still below its 683 in 2000. That the country treated as shorthand for punitive sentencing has been in a clear downward phase for a quarter of a century is easy to miss if you only watch the top of the table.
Countries moving in opposite directions sit side by side here. In multiples, Cambodia rose from 45 per 100,000 in 2000 to 320 in 2025, 7.1×; Türkiye from 73 to 400, 5.5×; Uruguay from 135 to 449, 3.3×; and Brazil from 132 to 416, 3.2×. Falling the other way, Seychelles more than halved from 837 in 2014 to 392 in 2025, Palau went from 695 in 2009 to 367 in 2023, and Belarus from 566 in 2000 to 345 in 2018. Within the same “top 30”, the directions of travel are opposite.
The most important caveat is that the observation years are not aligned. Coverage peaks at 26 countries in 2012, but only 9 have a 2024 value and 6 a 2025 value. Many countries report only in even-numbered years, and 1997 consists of a single figure — Cabo Verde at 148. The “latest-year ranking” is therefore not a snapshot of one year but a collection of each country’s most recent observation. To compare two countries rigorously, pick a year in which both have a value. Remember too that a high incarceration rate does not necessarily mean more crime: how much prosecution and imprisonment a justice system chooses to use matters more.
Trivia quiz
Which database compiles prison-population figures for countries worldwide?
The World Prison Brief, run by the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (Birkbeck, University of London). (Source)
Which country has long had the world's highest incarceration rate?
The United States, where 'mass incarceration' is widely debated. (Source)
Does a high incarceration rate necessarily mean high crime?
No — sentencing and criminal-justice policy (how many are charged and imprisoned) drive it as much as crime levels. (Source)
Source
World Prison Brief via Our World in Data — Prison population rate