India’s police and prison systems are facing a crisis of unprecedented scale, with underfunding, overcrowding, and systemic neglect threatening the very foundation of justice. The India Justice Report 2025 lays bare the shocking statistics and inefficiencies that have turned these institutions from pillars of justice into bottlenecks of suffering.
I. Policing at a Breaking Point: Undermanned, undertrained, and underprepared
The India Justice Report 2025 presents a sobering assessment: India’s policing system, crucial to the delivery of justice and maintenance of public trust, remains trapped in a cycle of chronic under-capacity, neglect of training, weak diversity, and mounting public distrust.
At the national level, India’s police-population ratio remains alarmingly low at 155 police personnel per 100,000 population, well short of the sanctioned strength of 197.5 and far below the United Nations’ recommended minimum of 222. The disparities are even more troubling at the state level: Bihar, for instance, deploys just 81 police personnel per lakh, leaving communities drastically underserved.
This shortage is amplified by high vacancy rates. As of 2023, 22% of sanctioned posts across all ranks were vacant nationally, with states like Uttar Pradesh facing a vacancy rate exceeding 25%. Recruitment drives have been sporadic and insufficient, with training capacities unable to keep up with even existing personnel needs.
Training, the backbone of effective policing, is gravely underfunded. States on average allocate only 1.25% of their police budgets to training, with only four states exceeding the 2% threshold. Further, only five states possess fully accredited police training academies. Specialised training in crucial areas such as cybercrime investigation, gender sensitisation, juvenile justice, and forensic handling remains thin and inconsistent across the country.
The crisis in forensic staffing exacerbates poor investigative quality: Half of all sanctioned forensic posts nationally remain vacant. Without adequate forensic support, investigations falter, leading to delayed trials, wrongful acquittals, or even wrongful convictions.
Infrastructure modernisation, while visible in patches, remains uneven.
- 83% of police stations now have at least one CCTV camera, yet compliance with Paramvir Singh Saini Supreme Court standards is inconsistent.
- 78% of police stations have set up women’s helpdesks, yet no state or UT meets its internal reservation targets for women in police, where the national average stands at a low 12%. Only Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Ladakh, and Tamil Nadu show movement towards the 33% target.
Urban-rural divides sharpen the challenges: Between 2017 and 2022, urban police stations increased by 4%, while rural police stations declined by 7%. In rural areas, each station covers an average of 300 square kilometres, compared to just 20 square kilometres for urban stations — dramatically limiting police accessibility for rural citizens.
Community policing initiatives — vital for building local trust — remain poorly institutionalised. Few states maintain dedicated community policing units or trained officers, and even where they exist, budgetary support is minimal.
Digitisation efforts such as the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) and the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) have made gains.
However, infrastructural bottlenecks — poor internet, electricity issues, and limited digital literacy among police — undermine their potential.
Gender diversity: The national benchmark for women’s representation in the police is 33 per cent, as advised by the central government in 2009. As of January 2023, the overall representation of women in the police (the civil police, District Armed Reserve [DAR], Special Armed Police Battalion, and Indian Reserve Battalion [IRB]) across all states and UTs stood at only 12.3 per cent, a modest rise from 11.7 per cent in January 2022. Among the large and mid-sized states, Bihar, at 24 per cent, now leads in women’s representation in the police, surpassing Andhra Pradesh (22%). Bihar also recorded the highest growth, from 21 per cent in 2022 to 24 per cent in 2023. Conversely, nine states/UTs,49 including Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal, saw declines, and seventeen states/UTs still report women’s representation below 10 per cent. Multiple MHA advisories have recommended three women Sub-Inspectors (SI) and 10 women constables in each police station. With little change over 2022, except Delhi, no state/UT meets this benchmark for SIs
Caste representation: Representation of under-represented caste groups are set by each state in line with its population mix. As of January 2023, Karnataka stands out as the only state to consistently achieve its targets across all three reserved groups, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Castes, both at the officer and the constabulary levels.
- Scheduled caste- Only four states (Gujarat, Manipur, Karnataka, and Himachal Pradesh) met their SC quotas at both officer and constabulary levels. Goa is the only other state to meet its target at the officer ranks. Sikkim, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Kerala met their quotas only at the constabulary level. Uttar Pradesh (61%), Rajasthan (52%), Tripura (47%), and Bihar (42%) faced the largest deficits in SC officer appointments.
- Scheduled Tribes- Several states have made significant strides in improving Scheduled Tribe (ST) representation within their police forces, with Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, and Karnataka demonstrating good performance by meeting their ST targets across both officer and constabulary ranks. However, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Tripura exhibit the highest shortfalls among ST Officers. Punjab has a 25 per cent quota for STs; it records only 3 ST Officers, equivalent to a 0.11 per cent representation or a shortfall of 99.8 per cent.
- Other Backward Classes: Nine states/UTs63 among those with quotas64 for Other Backward Classes (OBC) at the officer level have successfully met their targets. Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, and Kerala have over 40 per cent reservation for OBCs; in this instance, Tamil Nadu has exceeded its quota but Kerala and Sikkim have shortfalls of 7 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
The India Justice Report concludes bluntly: Without radical investment in human resources, serious upgrading of forensic and digital capacities, targeted gender inclusion and caste diversity, and strengthening rural policing, India’s policing system risks becoming increasingly irrelevant, reactive, and distrusted.
II. Prisons in Freefall: Overcrowded, underserved, and forgotten
India’s prison system, already strained, has now reached crisis proportions.
The India Justice Report 2025 reveals a sector overwhelmed by overcrowding, underfunding, systemic understaffing, and the abandonment of rehabilitation as a serious goal. Over the past decade, India’s prison population has expanded by almost 50%, while corresponding increases in infrastructure, medical care, or staffing have remained grossly inadequate. The national average prison occupancy stands at a shocking 131%, and 176 prisons operate at 200% occupancy or more. Several prisons house four times their sanctioned capacity.
Even more troubling is the composition of the prison population: 76% are undertrials — individuals who have not yet been convicted but are imprisoned due to sluggish police investigations, delayed trials, or systemic barriers to bail. In 20 states and UTs, more than 20% of undertrials have been detained between one to three years, without being found guilty.
Period of Detention: On average undertrials are spending more time than ever before in pre-trial detention. At the end of 2022, 11,448 or 2.6 per cent had spent more than five years in pretrial detention. This is considerably higher than the 5,011 in 2019 and 2,028 in 2012. Worryingly, Uttar Pradesh alone accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the undertrials who had spent more than five years in detention.
Infrastructure and healthcare deficits are appalling:
- According to the Supreme Court-appointed Amitava Roy Committee, only 68% of inmates have access to basic sleeping space.
- Health services are grossly underprovided: many prisons have one doctor for several hundred prisoners, whereas standards require one doctor for every 300 inmates.
- Mental health services are practically absent: out of 5.7 lakh prisoners, there are only 25 sanctioned psychologists or psychiatrists nationally, and 25 states/UTs have sanctioned none.
Staffing shortages exacerbate the situation:
- Nationally, over 33% of sanctioned prison posts remain vacant.
- Guard-to-inmate ratios in many states are as high as one guard per 80–100 prisoners, against the recommended 1:6 ratio, compromising safety and order.
Welfare spending is neglected: Less than 1% of prison budgets are allocated for rehabilitation, education, vocational training, or prisoner welfare. Funds earmarked for these purposes are often underutilised or redirected toward basic administrative costs.
Despite the adoption of forward-looking policies like the Model Prison Manual 2016 and the Model Prison and Correctional Services Act 2023, real transformation remains minimal. While 86% of prisons have introduced video conferencing facilities for court appearances, this has not significantly reduced trial delays or undertrial detention periods.
Legal aid services inside prisons are patchy:
- Only 67% of prisons have functional legal aid clinics.
- Where available, lawyers are poorly compensated (between ₹500–₹1000 per case), leading to low commitment and high absenteeism.
Open prisons — proven internationally to reduce recidivism — exist in only 16 states, covering a minuscule fraction of eligible inmates.
The situation for women prisoners is even worse:
- Sanctioned budgets for maternity and childcare are inadequate.
- Many prisons lack gender-sensitive facilities like private counselling spaces or sufficient women staff.
Deaths in custody, both natural and unnatural, have risen between 2017 and 2022 — a grim indicator of the system’s growing brutality.
The India Justice Report warns unambiguously: Until governments prioritise prison reforms with serious budgetary commitment, robust healthcare staffing, expanded rehabilitation services, and genuine decongestion measures, prisons will continue to be spaces of injustice, suffering, and lost human potential.
Conclusion: A justice delivery chain under threat
India’s police and prison systems form two vital links in the chain of justice.
Today, both are stretched to breaking point — one unable to protect citizens effectively, the other compounding injustice by warehousing them indefinitely.
The India Justice Report 2025 demands nothing less than a structural overhaul:
- Massive recruitment drives and specialised training
- Scientific and gender-diverse policing
- Investment in forensic and digital infrastructure
- Aggressive decongestion of prisons
- Rehabilitation-driven prisoner management
- Guaranteeing legal aid access and prison healthcare
The complete report may be read here.
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Underfunded, Overburdened, and Unjust: The national verdict from the India Justice Report 2025