World Prisons

Contribute

Keep the world's prison data accurate.

We cover 162 countries and ~9,300 facilities, hand-curated from public sources. Inevitably some entries are out of date, missing fields, or contain errors. Anyone can submit a correction — families, staff, researchers, journalists.

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Accepted corrections

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Contributors

162

Countries covered

How it works

  1. 1

    Find the page with the issue

    Open the country or prison page where the data is wrong, stale, or missing. Every detail page has a Submit a correction form at the bottom.

  2. 2

    Tell us what to change and why

    Specify the field, the current value, what it should be, and (ideally) a source URL. The stronger the source, the faster we apply.

  3. 3

    A human reviews it

    Submissions land in our moderation queue. We hand-review every one — typically within a few days. If it's good, we apply it to the live database and your contributor counter goes up.

  4. 4

    Earn a badge

    After your first accepted correction you become a contributor. After three you're verified; after ten, trusted — and reviewers fast-track your future submissions.

What we're especially looking for

  • Current population numbers

    Latest figures from official sources, with publication date and URL.

  • Visiting & mailing rule changes

    When operators update policy, the public-facing summary needs refreshing.

  • New facilities

    Newly-opened prisons, especially outside the US/UK, where we have less coverage.

  • Closures

    Year-closed dates with the press release or government announcement.

  • Reform initiatives

    Laws, programmes, or pilots changing how a country incarcerates.

  • Oversight reports

    National prison inspectorate or NGO reports we should link.

A note on safety

If you're a current or former prisoner, family member, or staff and concerned about identification, you can submit anonymously. We never publish submitter identities; reviewers see your email only to follow up on the substance. If you believe submitting would put you at risk, please reach out to a journalist or a trusted civil-society organisation instead — we list several on the organisations page.