10 countries with largest prison populations in the world

Brazil flag Brazil followed in third with over 840,000 people incarcerated, maintaining its position as the country with the third-largest prison population in the world.

Russia once had one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, but recent efforts to reduce prison populations through early release programmes and alternative sentencing have lowered that number.

The data comes from the World Prison Population List published by the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), which tracks and analyses prison trends across the globe.