List of countries by incarceration rate
China. The rate of 118 is for sentenced prisoners in 2015 in Ministry of Justice prisons only. World Prison Brief: "1,649,804 [prisoners] at mid-2015 (via Asian and Pacific Conference of Correctional Administrators - sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only, excluding pre-trial detainees and those held in administrative detention). The Deputy Procurator-General of the Supreme People's Procuratorate reported in 2009 that, in addition to the sentenced prisoners, more than 650,000 were held in detention centres In China. If this was still correct in mid-2015 the total prison population in China was at least 2,300,000. ... 118 [rate] based on an estimated national population of 1.4 billion at mid-2015 (from United Nations figures) – sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only. (A total prison population of 2,300,000 would raise the prison population rate to 164 per 100,000.)" See also: Re-education through labor and Laogai.
Human rights in China
Human rights in China is a highly contested topic, especially for the fundamental human rights periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC),[1] on which the government of the People's Republic of China and various foreign governments and human rights organizations have often disagreed. PRC authorities, their supporters, and other proponents claim that existing policies and enforcement measures are sufficient to guard against human rights abuses. However other countries and their authorities (such as the United States Department of State, Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others), international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Human Rights in China and Amnesty International, and citizens, lawyers, and dissidents inside the country, state that the authorities in mainland China regularly sanction or organize such abuses. Jiang Tianyong, 46, is the latest lawyer known for defending government critics to be jailed. According to the news over the past two years more than 200 have been detained in the ongoing crackdown on criticism in China.[2]