How many people are imprisoned in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan's prison population is 23,000 people. This figure aggregates all forms of detention counted by the source: sentenced prisoners, pre-trial detainees, and administrative detentions.

What is the incarceration rate in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan's incarceration rate is approximately 54 people per 100,000 population.

How many prisons are there in Afghanistan?

World Prisons indexes 10 individual facilities in Afghanistan. Each entry links to a detail page with contact information, capacity, oversight reports, and known conditions.

All countries

Asia · Southern Asia

Afghanistan

Q: Does Afghanistan have the death penalty?

Afghanistan's death-penalty status is: retentionist. Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

High confidence

Verified 20 May 2026 · Data dated 1 Sept 2024

Aging · 3mo ago

Figure is an estimate. Since the 2021 Taliban takeover, no official statistical release.

Compare Afghanistan World Prison Brief page

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

Prison population

23,000

Year: 2024

Rate per 100,000

Per 100,000 residents

Occupancy

179.9%

Severely overcrowded

Pre-trial / remand

52.2%

Share not yet sentenced

Female prisoners

4.3%

Foreign nationals

0.7%

Figures from official sources · verified 20 May 2026 · methodology

Conditions risk — across 10 facilities

Average of our computed Conditions Risk Score across the country's facilities. Methodology · Browse highest-risk

—

national average

10 unknown

retentionist on capital punishment. Last known execution: 2024.Methods: hanging, firing squad, stoningICCPR-OP2 (death-penalty abolition protocol): not a signatory

Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

Executions by year (Amnesty International)

2024
6

Source: Amnesty International + Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide.

How Afghanistan compares

vs Asia (16) & global averages

Rate per 100,000this: 54 · region: 171 · global: 214

Occupancy ratethis: 180% · region: 145% · global: 125%

Pre-trial sharethis: 52% · region: 32% · global: 32%

The vertical ticks mark the global (grey) and regional (amber) means. Bars are clipped at the high end for readability.

Prison population over time

Annual figures, latest survey year

2004: 5,262+436.7% over 17y2021: 28,240

Source: World Prison Brief / unodc

What we know — and don't

Transparency about the boundaries of this data. Click sources where linked.

What we don't know

Many facilities believed to operate informally; no consolidated national figure.

—

Held

—

Data completeness

100%

Score based on how many fields are populated. We surface this so you know where the gaps are.

National population: 42,760,0002024
Source-verified: 20 May 2026
Source links: 2 cited

Sources

Direct citations for the figures on this page.

Primary reference
World Prison Brief (ICPS, Birkbeck) — Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research
Human Rights Watch â World Report — Human Rights Watch
See /data-sources for our methodology.

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: AFG

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA

World Prisons. (2026). Afghanistan — prison statistics. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/countries/afghanistan

Chicago

"Afghanistan — prison statistics." World Prisons. Accessed August 30, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/countries/afghanistan.

BibTeX

@misc{worldprisons-afghanistan,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Afghanistan — prison statistics},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/countries/afghanistan},
  urldate = {2026-08-30}
}

@misc{worldprisons-afghanistan, author = {{World Prisons}}, title = {Afghanistan — prison statistics}, year = {2026}, url = {https://worldprisons.com/countries/afghanistan}, urldate = {2026-08-30} }