Six out of eleven jails in Tripura are overcrowded. These are Central Jail, Agartala, Udaipur District Jail, Kailashahar District Jail, Dharmanagar sub Jail, Kamalpur Sub Jail and Khowai Sub Jail.  Together they can shelter 499 prisoners but are holding 1200 convicts and under trials.

Most overcrowded is the Agartala Central Jail. Against a capacity for 211 prisoners, it is holding 662 convicts, that is more than three times the capacity. Khowai sub jail has accommodated 190 prisoners against a capacity of only 71. In Kailashahar jail, 102 prisoners are squeezed despite room for 52.

However, in five other jails, the Women's jail, Sonamura sub Jail, Amarpur sub Jail, Belonia sub jail and Sabroom sub jail the number of prisoners are less than the capacity of the jails.

The overcrowding of jails not only puts an immense pressure both from security point of view but also from resources management point of view. In July last, the situation of the Central Jail, Agartala suddenly turned violent following reduction of daily wages and introduction of rotation system while allotting works to the inmates as a resource management measures due to resource crunch. “With excess inmates in jail, the reform process undertaken by us gets badly affected", sources pointed out.

Not only this, due to overcrowding of the jails, the prisoners also suffer due to constraints in jail amenities, which are always limited. With the jails gradually becoming overcrowded, the administration has decided to shift about 200 prisoners from the Central jail to District Jail in Udaipur, Belonia sub jail and Sonamura sub jail as the latter two are presently having prisoners much lower than capacity.

Added to the woes of the prison administration is shortage of Head Warders along with Warders. Central Jail at Agartala has a shortage of 13 head warders along with 26 Warders..

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