Morocco’s prison population tops 102,000 as overcrowding reaches 158%

Morocco’s prison chief has urged judges to curb pretrial detention and make greater use of alternative sentences as overcrowding continues to strain the country’s prisons, with some facilities holding more than three times their designed capacity.

The prison population reached 102,941 inmates at the end of October, up from 98,692 a year earlier, bringing the national occupancy rate to 158%, Mohamed Saleh Tamek, head of the General Delegation for Prison Administration and Reintegration, told lawmakers Wednesday.

Some prisons have recorded occupancy rates exceeding 300%, putting pressure on authorities to provide basic services, including food and health care, while maintaining security and managing daily operations.

Tamek said the steady increase in the number of inmates had become one of the main obstacles to improving prison conditions. The growing population is also placing pressure on infrastructure, equipment and staff, while driving up operating costs.

He called on judicial authorities to reduce their reliance on pretrial detention and make fuller use of alternatives to imprisonment, warning that recent legal reforms had not yet slowed the growth in the prison population.

Morocco’s incarceration rate reached 280 inmates per 100,000 people this year, according to figures presented by Tamek. The rate stood at 217 in Algeria, 267 in Tunisia, 57 in Mauritania, 121 in Spain and 129 in France.

Alternative sentences have so far had a limited impact on easing overcrowding. Between January and the end of September, 3,408 people benefited from such penalties, despite the prison administration submitting 12,489 requests and proposals to judicial authorities to replace prison sentences, or the remaining portions of those sentences, with alternative measures since the law took effect.

Automatic sentence reductions have also failed to reverse the trend. As of Oct. 25, the measure had benefited 152,487 cases and resulted in the release of 12,547 inmates.

Tamek described the figures as significant but insufficient to produce a sustained decline in the prison population.

The number of inmates has continued to rise in recent years, with annual increases reaching 5% at times, despite efforts to expand prison capacity.

Tamek said constructing additional prisons and releasing inmates would not, on their own, resolve overcrowding unless authorities also addressed the factors driving the growing number of people entering the prison system.