The idea of carcerality and the carceral is an unspoken and understudied reality in many MENA countries. When political scientists think of what the literature has to say about repressive regimes we often consider studies of repressive spells (and associated violence databases) or regime types. However, growing literature has shown that institutions within the state do not necessarily act uniformly. We argue that to understand carcerality in the region, it is necessary that we examine the carceral state’s component parts. In this paper, we articulate what a carceral state looks like and how to measure it. We note that the development of this concept within this regional context will better our understanding of the repression-dissent nexus, the consequences of mobilization, what Aly ElRaggal called the permanent state of incarcerability, and further our ability to unpack the black box state repression. The paper starts with a comprehensive review of the literature on counting repression, presents a critique of existing methods, and conducts a series of elite interviews with scholars and NGO workers who work on different forms of documentation of the same incidents to inform this analysis. Finally, we propose a method for data collection and analysis and note what empirical tests would validate the theory.