⛓️Security and prisons· 2023-2026
Prisons above 120%: 57 deaths in custody in 2024
The Parliamentary Commissioner documented critical overcrowding, deaths with care failures and even empty beds from poor distribution, while the system keeps growing.
Bodies involved
Ministerio del Interior · Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitación
What it is
The Parliamentary Prison Commissioner, an office created by Parliament to oversee the prison system, publishes an annual report on the state of the units. The post was held by Juan Miguel Petit, who presented his final annual report in September 2025. The system depends on the National Rehabilitation Institute, a decentralised body of the Interior Ministry that buys food, supplies, maintenance and services for every unit in the country. The prison population has grown steadily and Uruguay has the highest incarceration rate in South America.
What is questioned
Subrayado reported in September 2024 that the commissioner's report counted 14,968 people imprisoned at the end of 2023, with the system above 120% density, most facilities in critical overcrowding and 51 deaths in custody that year (17 homicides, 13 suicides, 2 accidental and 19 non-violent), against a rate of 435 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. In September 2025, according to UyPress, the next report recorded 57 deaths in custody during 2024 — the second-highest year on record, behind the 86 of 2021 — of which 36 were violent: 18 homicides, 15 suicides, two accidental by intoxication and one by fall from height; the 2024 rate was 456 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants and reached 477 by mid-2025. Brecha detailed the same report: care negligence or State institutional failures in 27 of the deaths (47%), 147% density in women's prisons, 46% of units with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment", and around 1,500 places unused in 2024 because of distribution failures, 500 of them in a single facility. Petit proposed creating a specialised prison prosecutor's office because, he said, crimes occur in prisons that the justice system does not address.
Why it matters to you
Every prison place is paid for with taxes, and every death in custody happens under the State's responsibility. With around 1,500 places unused because of distribution problems, according to the commissioner's report, part of the overcrowding is not a lack of money but of management. And with the 74% three-year reoffending rate reported by the INR's leadership, the spending is not buying the result it promises.
Where it stands
The population kept growing. Caras y Caretas reported on 15 May 2026, drawing on the parliamentary report by INR director Ana Juanche, that there were 16,789 people deprived of liberty and a rate of 480 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest in South America and the eighth in the world, with Colonia and Rocha above 200% occupancy and Durazno above 180%. Juanche stated that 74% reoffend within three years of release. The same outlet noted that 1,000 new posts were created — 500 prison officers and 500 police — distributed through 2029, that the first group of 195 agents graduated in March 2026, and that participation in work or study rose from 37% to 53% between November 2025 and March 2026.
We could not isolate a defensible set of contracts
This spending does travel through public procurement, but we found no filter that separates this file's contracts from everything else those bodies buy. Rather than show a total that mixes the questioned spending with what nobody disputes, we show none. You can explore the body's contracts yourself from the explorer.
The commissioner's report does not publish purchase prices. What can be cross-checked against open data is INR and Interior Ministry spending on food, mattresses, hygiene and maintenance per unit, to see whether it kept pace with population growth.
Explore contracts in the explorer