About this data

Source: HM Prison and Probation Service, HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2025 to March 2026

• A prisoner is counted as crowded if they are held in a cell, or other accommodation, with more people than it was designed for: for example, two people sharing a cell built for one.
• HMPPS changed how it measures crowding from 2024/25, so those years are not directly comparable with earlier ones.

This chart appears in Prisons.