Prison Deaths and Prison Reforms

Context: The Supreme Court Committee on Prison Reforms has found suicide to be the leading cause of ‘unnatural’ deaths — deaths other than ageing or illnesses.

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Key Observations of the Report

• Suicides as Leading Cause of Unnatural Deaths: Suicide is observed to be the leading cause of ‘unnatural’ deaths among Indian prisoners with U.P. recording the highest number of suicides between 2017 and 2021. The number of custodial deaths, including suicides, has been steadily rising since 2019, with 2021 recording the highest number of deaths so far.
• Unclear Classification of Deaths: There is ambiguity in classifying prison deaths as ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’. Factors such as lack of proper medical attention or timely medical care raise questions about how these deaths are categorized, leading to underreporting and misclassification of deaths.
• Prison Infrastructure and Conditions: Hostile prison infrastructure, congestion, lack of access to medical help, and inadequate staffing are contributing factors to custodial deaths.
• Need for Clear Documentation and Accountability: There is a need for clear and reliable documentation, transparency, and accountability in reporting prison deaths. This includes distinguishing deaths resulting from pre-existing conditions and those developed in prison, ensuring appropriate treatment, and addressing medical and mental health issues.
• Overcrowding in Prisons: The report highlights that the state of Indian prisons is in a “pitiful state of affairs,” with overcrowding being a significant issue.
  • The issue of overcrowding is primarily linked to the undertrial population, with many undertrial prisoners languishing in jails for extended periods.
  • Overcrowding rates vary across different types of prisons, with district prisons having the highest rate (148 percent).
  • Factors that contribute to overcrowding include inadequate prison infrastructure, avoidable arrests for petty offenses, and delays in the investigation and trial process.
• Living Conditions: Living conditions in prisons do not meet the standards outlined in the Model Prison Manual, 2016, and require urgent attention.
• Occupancy Rate: The occupancy rate in Indian prisons, including sub-jails and district jails, stood at 122 percent as of November 30, 2018.

Key Recommendations:

The Supreme Court Committee, along with other bodies like the National Human Rights Commission, has made recommendations for prison reforms. These include investments in healthcare facilities, mental health units, training officers to provide basic and emergency care, suicide prevention programs, adequate staffing, and measures to address overcrowding and improve inmates’ access to basic necessities and communication with the outside world.

• Strengthening UTRC Mechanism: The report suggests strengthening the Undertrial Review Committee (UTRC) mechanism to address overcrowding by recommending the release of undertrial prisoners and convicts eligible for release due to bail or remission.
• Speedy Trials: To address overcrowding, the report recommends the establishment of special fast-track courts to handle petty offences and cases pending for five years or more. This is intended to expedite trials and reduce the number of undertrial prisoners.
• Monitoring of Cases: High courts should direct District & Sessions Judges to regularly monitor cases pending in courts where the accused has been in custody for an extended period.
• Improving Prison Infrastructure: The report suggests expediting the approval of construction projects and improving living conditions, especially for women inmates and their children.
• Staffing Shortages: There is a call to address staffing shortages within the prison department by filling existing vacancies.
• Alternative Sentencing: Encouraging the use of alternative sentencing options, such as fines, probation, and admonition, for certain offenses to reduce overcrowding and promote prisoner reintegration into society.
• Revising Model Prison Manual of 2016 to include specific provisions in line with Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.
• Expanding Open Prison System across entire country, potentially fostering rehabilitation. Segregating undertrials and convicts in prison to curb violence.
• Enable communication facilities: Another recommendation is to allow inmates an “adequate number of telephones” with friends and family; and also allow access to newspapers or periodicals to “reduce the feeling of isolation” and “possibility of harmful activity.”
• Monitoring High Risks: To prevent suicides specifically, a strict check on tools such as ropes, glasses, wooden ladders, pipes should be done.  Also, initial mental health screening at the time of entry into jail; and installing CCTV cameras to monitor high-risk inmates should be made mandatory.
  • Almost 1.5% of the prison population suffers from mental illnesses, per the CHRI report.
• Major overhaul is possible only structurally: both the public and official mindset regarding prisoners and an urgent revamping of the criminal justice system are sorely needed.

Prisons and their governance in India

• Prisons serve as correctional homes that are designed to punish and rehabilitate individuals who have been convicted of crimes.
• They are an integral part of the criminal justice system (CJS) that deals with crime prevention, investigation, prosecution, punishment and correction.
• Prison governance in India:
  • Prison is a State subject under List-II of the Seventh Schedule in the Constitution.
  • The modern prison system was conceptualised by TB Macaulay in 1835.
  • The management and administration of Prisons falls exclusively in the domain of the State Governments, and is governed by the Prisons Act, 1894 and the Prison Manuals of the respective State Governments.
  • However, the Ministry of Home Affairs provides regular guidance and advice to States and UTs on various issues concerning prisons and prison inmates.

Need for reforms in Indian prisons

• Overcrowding of prisons: According to the ‘Prison Statistics 2021’, the average prison in the country has an occupancy rate of 130%.
  • This undermines the ability of prison systems to meet the basic needs of prisoners, such as healthcare, food, and accommodation.
  • This also endangers the basic rights of prisoners, including the right to have adequate standards of living and the right to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental health.
• Undertrials: Based on the ‘Justice India Report 2022’, 77 percent of the prisoners were undertrials. The pendency of cases is a main reason for undertrials remaining in prison.
  • As these awaiting trial inmates come into touch with their incarcerated inmates, they get influenced into the world of crime.
• Custodial Tortures /Deaths: Brutal physical treatment in custody by police official is another major problem of jails in India.
  • According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the last decade (2010-2020) on an average 5 people died in judicial custody every day.
• Staff shortage: India’s prisons are understaffed by at least 33 per cent with the highest vacancies found at the officer and correctional staff levels.
  • This has increased the workload of the staff and is having an impact on the ‘correctional’ aspect of imprisonment.
• Lack of infrastructure: Most jails in India suffer from lack of basic prison infrastructure such as sleeping quarters, hygienic washrooms, and health clinics.
  • The budgetary support for prison system has not increased proportionally to the population.
• Hygiene: Indian prisons are considered some of the most unhygienic in the world. Prisoners housed in these prisons suffer from diseases such as jaundice, hepatitis etc.
• Issues of women prisoners: There is a severe lack of female staff, inadequate numbers of toilets, bathrooms and other basic preconditions for sanitation and hygiene. They also remain particularly vulnerable to custodial sexual abuse.
• Insufficient Legal Aid: There are many accused individuals who are forced to stay in prison due to their inability to pay legal fees to fight their case.
• Mentality of the system: People involved in prison management suffer from a colonial hangover, which prescribes harsh treatment for prisoners. They still believe that prisoners must be treated harshly.

Various committees and their suggestions on prison reforms

Various initiatives for the improvement of conditions in Indian prisons

• Modernisation of Prisons (MoP) Project: Government of India has decided to provide financial assistance to States and UTs, through MoP for using modern-day security equipment in Prisons for
  • Enhancing the security of jails and
  • To facilitate the task of reformation and rehabilitation of prisoners through correctional administration programmes.
• E-Prisons Project: The E-Prisons project aims to introduce efficiency in prison management through digitization.
• Model Prison Manual 2016: The manual provides detailed information about the legal services (including free services) available to prison inmates.
• Fast Track Courts: Fast Track Courts (FTC) are the type of courts that provide swift justice and are established after consultation with respective High Courts.
• e-Courts Project: The project will streamline the judicial processes and transform the Indian Judiciary by ICT enablement of Courts. This will reduce pendency in the judiciary and help the litigants.

Model Prisons Act, 2023:

The Ministry of Home Affairs finalized a comprehensive Model Prisons Act, 2023 aimed at holistic reform of prisons and prison management in line with modern-day needs and with a firm focus on correctional ideology.

About the Model Prisons Act, 2023

• The model law was drafted by the Bureau of Police Research and Development, as per directions of the home ministry.
• The new model Act, which not only seeks to modernize the 130-year-old Prisons Act, 1984 but also assimilates updated provisions of the of Prisoners Act and The Transfer of Prisoners Act, 1950.
• It is meant to serve as a guiding document for the states to bring matching amendments in their prison laws, with whatever modifications they may consider necessary.
• The aim of the model Act is also to protect the society from the criminal activities of hardened criminals and habitual offenders, even as focus is laid on vocational training and skill development of the jail inmates to ease their reintegration into the society after release.

Salient features of Model Prisons Act, 2023

• Provision for punishment of prisoners and jail staff for use of prohibited items like mobile phones etc. in jails.
• Provision of security assessment and segregation of prisoners and individual sentence planning.
• Provision for the use of technology in prison administration with a view to bringing transparency.
• Proposes separate accommodation for women prisoners and transgender prisoners in the interest of their safety and well-being.
• A grievance redressal system for prisoners, a prison development board and an attitudinal change towards prisoners is proposed.
• The model Act also provides for video conferencing with the courts and scientific and technological interventions in prisons as part of reforming prison management.
• It also has a provision for establishment of high-security jails for high-risk prisoners as well as open and semi-open jails for low-risk ones.
• Importantly, the Act provides for legal aid to prisoners, apart from encouraging and incentivizing good conduct by prisoners through the provision of parole, furlough and premature release etc.

Way Forward:

• Use of technology: Technological upgradations such as biometric identification facilities, prisoner information system, provision of CCTVs, video conferencing facilities along with critical infrastructure such as hospital, sanitation systems are needed.
• Open Prisons: In 1980, the All-India Committee on Jail Reform suggested that open prisons be established in all of the states and UTs.
  • Open prisons have relatively less stringent rules as compared to controlled jails. They go by many names like minimum-security prison, open-air camps or prison without bars.
• Reducing undertrials:
  • Timely and complete production of under trials before the court so that a trial is not prolonged.
  • Introducing the system of plea bargaining which refers to negotiation where the accused agrees to plead guilty in exchange for certain concessions by the prosecution.
  • Capacity building in lower judiciary to reduce the number of adjournments while hearing bail pleas.
• Improving the system of Parole and Furlough: To enable prisoners to preserve their social connections and mitigate the effects of overcrowding in prisons.
  • Grant of parole and furlough must be balanced against public interest and can be refused to certain categories of prisoners.
• A robust grievance redressal mechanism: should be put in place in all prisons to ensure the rights of prisoners are not violated and their concerns are heard impartially.
• Skill development: Upgrading the educational facilities, vocational training, and skill development programs within prisons can not only enhance the daily lives of prisoners but also provide them with economic support upon release.
• Adherence to key international rules and standards such as:

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