Prison manning: There’s a need to raise the bar
JAIL CONDITIONS Project Prayas aims at providing legal aid, discussing cases with lawyers, approaching district court, looking after kids of convicts
Project Prayas which is headed by Vijay Raghavan, dean of Centre for Criminology and Justice and School of Social Work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, has been working for the rehabilitation of young adult prisoners under 23 years of age and women prisoners in jails across Mumbai for the past 27 years. The project has been associated with Byculla jail, Arthur road jail, Thane jail and Kalyan jail.
The project aims at providing legal aid, discussing cases with lawyers, approaching the district court, looking after the children of the undertrials and convicts, focusing on the health of the prisoners, rehabilitation of prisoners, arranging for travel allowances, discussing family problems, arranging for ration and vocational training and sponsorship for various courses undertaken by prisoners. Sanitary napkins are provided every month to the women undertrials.
Speaking to the Free Press Journal, Raghavan said, “The murder that took place inside Byculla jail is not a simple case of the staff authorities allegedly thrashing Manjula Shetye. Even if an officer is suspended, the problems will not change since the whole process is based on the lack of resources. Mere suspension of any officer will only lead to another such incident which will eventually fade in public memory. There is a plethora of laws which are against the poor. If a prisoner does not have the means to pay the legal fees, to bribe a warden or a jail official, his survival inside the jail becomes extremely difficult. The number of laws under which people are booked should be reduced. For example, Section 41 (A) of the Criminal Procedure Code states that a person need not be necessarily arrested and lodged as an undertrial at a jail for petty offences. The accused can directly appear before the police and the court. Still, the police have been misusing their power resulting into the overcrowding of jails.”
Government negligence
“Basically, a convict is assigned the responsibility as a warden so that the government does not have to appoint a full-time staff at jails to supervise over the inmates. This creates levels of hierarchy. A warden’s position is an ambiguous one. In Shetye’s case, she was in charge of distributing food for the inmates. When she questioned the jail officials over the shortage of food, she was thrashed. Although, a warden has an authority over other inmates but a warden’s relationship with the jail staff is a tenuous one. The jail authorities appoint wardens, jail guards and jail watchmen from lower police ranks for cost cutting purpose. The problem of hierarchy plagues police and the judiciary too,” said Raghavan.
Dire need for a prison admin system
“Our psychology is to find an ad hoc way of dealing with things. The government does not want to invest and improve the living conditions and address the issues of the inmates of jails across India simply because they are not the vote banks. There is a dire need for an Indian Prison Service where the officers of the ranks of Deputy Commissioner of Police and Superintendent of Police and above should only be assigned the task of supervising the jails, rehabilitation and after-care as mentioned in the Krishna Iyer Committee report and the Mulla Committee report. If these two committee reports are implemented in letter and spirit, the problems across the jails will be resolved. This case should be used an opportunity to get the State Finance Ministry to sanction a budget for the upliftment of jails,” added Raghavan.
Shortage of staff in jails
“As per the prison manual, there are trainings conducted in Pune for psychologically and emotionally effectively dealing with the prisoners but there is not enough manpower to relieve the jail officials for training purposes. For example, the sanctioned capacity of inmates at Arthur road jail is 900. But the total number of the inmates at the jail is 3,000.In the 1990s, the women prisoners of Byculla jail were kept at Arthur road jail. The number of inmates then was just 33. Now, the number of inmates have relatively increased. The nature of offences, financial and economic offences and the problems of overcrowding have increased. The current staff strength at Byculla and Arthur road jail is not enough to cater to the needs of the inmates.” added Raghavan.