What the reform does to prison beds and the budget
Every sentencing body abroad reports prison places with each rule it adopts. Here: undertrial and sentenced beds per 10,000 cases, the cost of prison and judicial time, and the one lever that keeps certain conviction from filling the jails.
Beds, per 10,000 charge-sheeted cases a year, in steady state
Who is in prison and why. Undertrial beds are accused waiting in custody; sentenced beds are pleas and trial convictions serving their terms. A reform that convicts more people needs more beds unless short sentences are served outside prison, which is what the Probation of Offenders Act and community service under BNS s.4(f) allow.
Money
Prison cost per inmate-year and judicial time per hour, at the rates set on the Simulator. Both are assumptions to be replaced with the State's own budget figures; the comparison between scenarios is what matters.
Figures are for the representative offence in the scenario and scale linearly with the number of cases. A national total needs the real case mix, in which petty offences and fines dominate; do not multiply these by national inflow.
What this page is for
The US Sentencing Commission, Minnesota and the UK Sentencing Council all report prison places for every rule they adopt; the Urban Institute forecaster does the same for the public. In India, Home and Finance will ask the same question before Law does. This page answers it, and it will not always answer in the reform's favour: certain conviction fills prisons unless sentencing for first offenders in the lower bands leans on probation, community service and fines, which is also what the Guidelines' note on the reformative approach in Q1 intends.