The Prison conditions in India has always been an impediment to the criminal justice system and its administration. In spite of the several attempts to reform prisons condition, it has been tossed aside due to political game and inefficiency to meddle over funds. Not only men, but women have also been afflicted victims of prison conditions and has suffered serious human rights violations. The fact that the proportion of the male prisoners is larger than women prisoners in jails has been a general disregard for the specific need of women.[1]

According to Prison Statics report by NCRB,[2] the Indian prisons have overcrowded by 14% than its capacity in terms of occupancy ratio. Not only, is the prison space packed like sardines, but due to the high percentage of under-trials prisoner and insufficiency of the funds, the reform to prison system has been an unattainable task since long.  These constraints have left the women in a disgraceful state and denied justice. Not late to rise, the Standing Committee on Empowerment of Women, has released a report on ‘Women in Detention and Access to Justice’ to deliberate on the issues of Women safety in prisons, a mechanism for reducing the undertrial women prisoners and access to Justice.[3]

Female in Jail: Living in Overcrowd

The Committee identified that the number of inmates in the Central jails extends up to 1,85 182 against the authorized capacity of 1,59,158. This has succumbed women from basic amenities like food, sanitation, and health care facilities. The underlying cause for overcrowding in the prisons is the unduly long under trials for the petty offenses and non-criminal offenses because the prisoners who are facing less serious charges have outnumbered the prisoners accused of the grave and serious offenses. Besides, additions of new inmates clog the system very badly.  Due to the above-said reason, this has a serious and detrimental effect on the health of women including physical deterioration and mental problems. In addition to, this has been the expenditure of the jail which has again the exacerbated the prevailing conditions.

The Ministry of Home affairs has highlighted the issue of enormous overcrowding, by stating that there are jails wherein the proportion is 300% higher than its capacity to hold occupancy. Ministry elucidates the problem that Prison System come in State subject under Schedule VII of Constitution and which State Govt. overhauled of lack of funds to meddle with the efficient infrastructure and building.

The suggestion of the Committee –

1. That the prisoners who have been charged with the petty offenses or less serious criminal offenses like ticketless, drug offenders etc. should be dealt with alternative methods.
2. The Report advocates that indirect cause of overcrowding is unnecessary and unjustified arrest by the police. Therefore, restraint by the police for unwarranted arrest would make a headway for reducing the people in the jails, embarking upon the Supreme Court guidelines.
3. Central Govt. should intervene in the meticulous understanding of the prison system’s condition and provide sufficient funds as in Phase I in ear 2004-2009 for the proper maintenance.

Training and Recruitment

The ministry, in reply, has informed the committee that there is a shortage of women officials in the management of prison due to not having the full access to leave, shifts etc. which pose a serious and adverse impact on the women prisoners as well. Notably, the committee expounded that women are more prone to anxiety due to incarceration which got escalated when the social contact is less or absent.

The Suggestion of the Committee –

1. Training and Recruitment – More women officials like welfare officers, psychiatrists, after-care officer, teacher, instructor, law officer, and another officer.
2. To enforce measure which ensures the gender-sensitive prison to allay the mental anxieties of the women.
3. To conduct workshop and training of officials to develop positive behavior towards women prisoners

Custodial Rapes-Access to Justice through better surveillance in Jails and involvement of Civil Rights Activists

Custodial rapes have been a serious threat to Women across the country. In the State of UP, reported custodial cases were 189 in 2014 and 91 in 2015, whereas the other States have shown deviance to the extent of nil.

The brutality or harshness shown by the police reminded the committee to recommend Gore Committee on Police Training 1972, which is of the view to inculcate the right attitude towards public and to never forget that civil servant is a servant, not the master of the community.

The Suggestion of the Committee

1. To install a better surveillance system in the prison-like formulate a guideline for the installation of CCTV and supervision by the senior officers of the police.
2. To provide a greater interface with the civil rights activists and to make arrangement for meeting them.
3. To achieve the desired objective within the stipulated or bound time.

The issue of Undertrials

Why the under-trials are still increasing even after repeated orders of the Supreme Court?

Failure of the implementation of the Supreme Court orders and its guidelines, the effective criminal justice system loses its sheen over reforming the prison system. In Bhim Singh v. Union of India,[4] the Supreme court has given directors of the release of eligible under trails –

The Supreme Court reiterated that the effective implementation of Section 436A of CrPC, 1973 is a quintessential step towards reducing the under-trial prisoner. The Supreme Court, in an order dated 5^th Sept. 2014, directed the CJM/ Sessions judge to hold a single sitting in a week in each prison of their jurisdiction for the next two months. The magistrate shall identify such eligible persons who have completed half of the maximum period of imprisonment for the said offense and shall make an appropriate order to release them. Also, the magistrate shall report to registrar general of the High Court after that two months.

MHA has issued a letter to all States/UT to comply with the Supreme Court order and to make arrangement for release for a vulnerable group like women and who fall under the ambit of Section 436A of CrPC.

Thus, this implementation for two months has brought a significant change in the prison system and has embarked upon changing the prison reform regime. Therefore, it is should be directed to retired judges or para-legal committee to take permanent action in lieu of increasing undertrial prisoners.

Access to Justice

The Committee explored the dimension that ‘Why Women are facing problems in accessing justice’ and to court process. It was discovered that non-availability of surety bond is a serious problem as far as women prisoners are concerned. Therefore, the committee has proposed to undertake measures to provide legal aid. The District Legal Aid societies have been established with the purpose of providing legal assistance to all inmates or prisoner particularly the indigent ones. Therefore, the committee has solicited the free legal aid to Women in reforms and to engage more Women lawyers in District Legal Aid Services to encounter with the Women prisoners.

Moreover, it was highlighted the MHRD that it is a responsibility of Jail administration to track the status of the Court cases, for under-trial prisoner, and a history ticket is allocated to each of them upon their admission which is updated with the court proceeding & production. The Ministry has assured that to update all details and the cases status etc. upon the Integrated Prison software system to electronically manage all the details and information.

The Suggestion of the Committee

1. The DLSAs and other legal aid counsellings cell must take a concerted effort to rope in all the legal volunteers who can help the undertrials by drafting the application of bail, affidavits and other legal procedure. To help women, in arranging the surety bonds and
2. The DLSAs should be made an electronically accessible viable software which would make a headway in accessing the details of the prisoner and would help in reducing the under-trials prisoners.

Gender-specific Health problems

The Committee looked into the aspects that whether the details of the common problems among women prisoners are available or not. To the surprise, no details or information related to Gender-specific health problem were known. The committee found that HIV/AIDS, TB, certain venereal disease, gynecological illness, and other menstrual problems have shown occurrence among the Women prisoners.

The suggestion of the Committee –

1. To undertake a detailed survey regarding the common health problems among the women prisoners across the country and suggested to maintain a central data bank for the prevailing health issues in prisons.
2. To recruit the health care officials in view of the larger interest of the women and to have a ratio of medical officers as laid down in norms.
3. The task of maintaining the critical ratio as to women prison to be managed by the States/UTs.

Model Prison Manual

Initially, the management of the prisons are governed by the Prison Act, 1894 and Prison Manuals/ Regulations prepared and ordinated by the State Governments. That has been the legislation which was remained unchanged to a long time except for the certain amendment by the States to suit their local jurisdiction. However, the States have implemented the separate legislation to regulate and manage the prison-related affairs and manual for the prisoner in their separate jurisdiction in consonance with the modern corrective philosophy or criminal victimology.

The Govt. of India to bring uniformity in rules and regulations, has framed the Model Prison manual 2003 which covered the basic rules in consonance with the corrective guidelines and lays down the framework for superintendence and management of the prison. The States had been directed to revise their Prison rules/manual in lieu of this model guidelines.

The Standing Committee, in 2017, affirmed that no concrete steps towards the effective implementation of  Model Prison Manual, 2003 has been taken. Besides this, since last 16 years, no impact assessment was done, which fall back into the thought of deploring condition of Prisons in India.

The suggestion of the Committee – To take an impact assessment of 2003 Model Prison Manual and New 2016 Model Prison Manual.

Conclusion

The Standing Committee on Empowerment of Women has fostered a synchronized and structured approach to deal with the women in the prison across India, including revising the Model Prison Manual to an extent, to conduct surveys and to collect data. TO ENSURE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION, no word could be better than ‘a data or information’. The most severe problems encountered with the effective mechanism for reforming the prison in lieu of gender sensitivity, are the lack of data available, no study has been conducted and no effective implementation of the existing rules/regulations advocated. Thus, the effective approach must adhere to technological advancement which would significantly attain the purpose of bringing this report into existence.

The need for the prison reforms has been an incomplete task which can be trajected on right path owing to technological employment, high-level ethics and professional conduct, efficient funds from Central Govt. and involvement of NGO and Civil rights activist.

Also Read this article:

Women in Indian Prisons: Over Crowded jails, lack of sanitation, custodial incidents & shortage of doctors (Read Report)

[1] 10^th Report, Women in Detention and Access to Justice, Committee on Empowerment of Women, Parliament of India,  http://164.100.47.193/lsscommittee/Empowerment%20of%20Women/16_Empowerment_of_Women_10.pdf ( last accessed Nov. 30, 2018)

[2] Prisons Statistics of India, 2015, National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, India (2015), http://ncrb.gov.in/statpublications/psi/Prison2015/Full/PSI-2015-%2018-11-2016.pdf (last accessed Nov. 30, 2018).

[3] Standing Committee Report Summary, Women in Detention and Access in Justice, PRS Legislative Research, Parliament of India,(2017), (last accessed on Nov. 27, 2018), https://www.prsindia.org/sites/default/files/parliament_or_policy_pdfs/Standing%20Committee%20Report%20Summary%20-%20Women%20Prisoners.pdf

[4]  19 (1981) DLT446 (India).