03 May

Prison Reforms

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Contents

• Introduction
• ­ Major Problems Faced by Indian Prisons
• ­ Impacts of the above Problems
• ­ Committee formed in the Past
• ­ Steps that need to be taken

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Quotes

i. “Hate The Crime and Not The Criminal” – Mahatma Gandhi

Introduction

• The basic purpose of the prison is to reform and transform criminals into honest and law abiding citizens by inculcating in them a distaste for crime and criminality. Prisons are supposed to bring the offenders back to mainstream of the society. The United Nations also mandates the Standard Minimum Rules for treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) which enlists the rights of the prisoners such as Right to life including right to contact outside world, right to proper sleep and clothing, right to security, right to proper healthcare etc.
• The current situation in Indian prisons is in contrast to above requirements. The basic human rights of prisoners are getting violated every day and prisons are not able to serve the purpose of reformation properly. In fact the rot in India’s criminal justice system impacts the psychological condition of prisoners making them more vulnerable than before to criminal propensities. The prisoners get out of jail ruined and not reformed.

Major Problems Faced by Indian Prisons

• Overcrowding
  • According to NCRB data, India had more than 4,33,000 prisoners in 2016 which was around 20% more than its capacity. In states like UP and WB the overcapacity is by more than 100% and in some prisons this overcrowding is by more than 500%.
  • Bigger concern is the high percentage of undertrials which contribute to about 68% of India’s population.
• Understaffing
  • 33% of the total requirement of prison officials still lies vacant. The man power recruited inside this prison is almost 50% short of its actual requirement.
  • Overcrowding and understaffing leads to rampant violence and other criminal activities in jails.
• Underfunding -> Poor Infrastructure
  • Poor health and hygiene conditions
  • Insufficient food and inadequate clothing
• Variation of prison rules among different states
  • Since Prison management is a state subject – there is a lot of variation in Prison manual among different states.
• Very less focus on reformation, vocational training etc – focus is on retribution.
• Lack of after-care, rehabilitation and probation
  • There also nothing in existence which takes care of prisoners after they get out of the prison. These facilities are important for their rehabilitation in the society.
  • It makes their integration in society difficult
• Lack of continuous study
  • Most states don’t have a board of visitors who review the jails. The boards that do exist rarely meet.

Impacts of the above Problems

i. Human Rights Violation for Prisoners

• The bad condition is violative of the basic human rights of Indian prisoners and should not be accepted.
• Increasing unnatural deaths and mental illness in Prisons
  • According to 2021 NCRB Report, there are more than 9,000 prisoners who suffer from mental illness and more than 150 deaths by suicide has taken place. Further, there is almost no availability of psychiatrist/psychologists in Indian prisons.

ii. Poor Security, Corruption, discrimination and inequality in Indian Prisons

• Not all prisoners are treated in same way.
  • Politicians get better treatment, whereas general public have to undergo inhuman condition. It remains hellish for socio economically disadvantaged.
  • Corruption in Indian prisons allow a number of illegal activities to be run from the prisons.
  • Security of the Prison also gets challenged due to poor infrastructure and understaffing. Therefore, there are incidences of prisoners escaping from them.

iii. Negligible focus on Reforming prisoners

• Reformation can only take place once the basic human rights of prisoners are taken care of.

iv. Difficulty in extraditing Criminals to India

• On many occasions, courts in foreign countries deny extradition of offenders to India on the grounds of poor human rights conditions of Indian Jails.

Committee formed in the Past

• Justice A.N Mulla Committee and Justice Krishan Iyer Committee (on women prisoners) – both in 1980s
  • Mulla committee batted for more rights and better condition of prisons. It also emphasized on dealing with overcrowding and high percentage of undertrial population in India.
  • Similarly, there were measures suggested to increase the number of staff through mechanisms such as an All India Services to deal with vacancies in Prisons.
  • Bringing prison management under concurrent list would have also contributed towards brining uniformity in the process of jail management.
• But most of these recommendations have remained ignored so far.

Steps that need to be taken

i. Revise the Prison Act, 1894

• The act is more than a century old and doesn’t serve the needs of today’s socio-economic and political condition.
• Many of the provisions are obsolete and redundant.

ii. Creation of a National Prison Commission as a continuing body to bring about modernization of prisons in India.

• Suggested by Mulla Committee (All India Committee on Jail Reforms1980-83).

iii. More Resources to prisons (including Human Resource)

• For basic requirements
• Improved hygienic conditions
• Infrastructure -> more number of prisons
• Separate prisons for undertrials, convicts, hardened criminals etc with different level of security.
• Introduction of Jammers in the prisons to prevent unauthorized outside communication
  using mobile phones in Prisons.

iv. Steps to deal with overcrowding

• Strictly implement Section 436A of CrPC, increase awareness among the prison authorities regarding the provision
• Implement the 2017 LCI recommendation -> undertrials who have completed a third of their maximum sentence for offences attracting up to seven years of imprisonment be released on bail.
• Enhancing infrastructure, promoting concepts like open prisons of Rajasthan
• Steps to fast track judicial process

v. After-care, rehabilitation and probation should constitute an integral part of prison service

• Rehabilitation will be meaningful only if they are employed after release and for the purpose vocational education facilities should be introduced or upgraded in prisons.

vi. Continuous study of prison

• There is a need of periodical study of Indian prisons by objective, independent and committed observers and publication of their finding in order to monitor the extent to which the human rights of prisoners are respected.

vii. Increased focus on mental health:

• National Mental Health Policy, 2014 considers prisoners as a class of people vulnerable to mental health.
• We need to take a more all-encompassing approach, to fight mental illness in prison. Treatment of individuals, Identifying the social and underlying determinants of mental health in prisons.

Conclusion

• Today, there is a need of model prisons, where inmates are accommodated with due regard to their basic human needs and are handled with dignity. This can only be achieved by strong political will which seems to be completely lacking for now as inmates are not allowed to vote.
  Here, Civil Society Organizations can play an important role in increasing awareness about need of prison reforms and acting as a pressure group on legislators to bring these reforms. We
  already have recommendations from a number of expert committees regarding jail reforms, its high time that we start implementing them.