Prison overcrowding, as one of the serious challenges of penal systems, is a multidimensional phenomenon whose roots are intertwined in legal, administrative, economic, social, and even cultural factors, leading to ineffective policies when analyzed in a single dimension. High prisoner density not only violates human dignity but also weakens the right to privacy, health, hygiene, and the corrective and rehabilitative objectives of punishment. A significant portion of the prison population in Iran comprises financial convicts, those sentenced to cash fines, deportees, and drug-related offenders, while another portion consists of individuals under pretrial detention who are practically exposed to the destructive effects of imprisonment. Alongside legal foundations such as the mandatory nature of certain detention orders, extra-legal factors—including the specific customs of the judicial apparatus, public pressure, the role of media and law enforcement agents, and the inadequacy of crime-proving tools—reinforce the propensity to issue detention orders leading to incarceration. Proposed strategies emphasize reducing pre-trial detention, utilizing the capacities of the 2013 Criminal Procedure Code (including sentencing postponement, prosecution suspension, alternatives to imprisonment, and mediation), developing restorative justice, decriminalization and de-penalization in certain offenses, strengthening social work, and macro-reforms such as prison standardization, controlled privatization, the establishment of secure hospitals, and at a more fundamental level, reducing poverty, unemployment, and corruption as criminogenic grounds.