Prison Reforms in India with Vijay Raghavan (HRW'21 Day 6)
Prison Reforms in Indiawith Vijay Raghavan
Session Topic: Prison Reforms in India
Speaker: Mr. Vijay Raghavan
Date: 15th December 2021.
Time: 5:00 to 6:30 PM.
Bio: Vijay Raghavan, MA in Social Work with Specialisation in Criminology and Correctional Administration (TISS) and Ph.D. in Social Work (TISS) Working with the Centre for Criminology and Justice (CCJ), School of Social Work, TISS, since 2005, and currently as a Professor with the Centre.
What comes to one’s mind when they think about prisons…Human society has suffered from crimes and deviance for a long time. ‘Crime is a very normal part of society', says Durkheim. He also says, ‘Crime helps define outer boundaries of that society.’ Homosexuality has been criminalised in one place and not others.
70 %of the undertrials are yet to be convicted. Bureaucracy has crept into Indian prisons as well. Undertrials can wear normal clothes, meet families, have free legal aid, etc. The judge-population ratio in India stood at 21.03 judges per million people in 2020, which considering the population of India (1300 million), isn’t a good ratio. When talking about the police-population ratio, the ratio stands at 155.78 per lakh persons whereas the sanctioned strength is 195.39 per lakh persons.
Maharashtra tops justice delivery in India, southern states dominate ranking 29% judges are women, in High Courts only 11.4% 2/3rd inmates are undertrials, according to India’s Justice Report by Tata Trust.
West Bengal has its own correction act, the West Bengal Correctional Services Act, 1992. It is maintained by the state government for proper management, administration, functioning of prisons and reformation of prisoners to become good citizens.
In India, overpopulation has exacerbated the issue of sanitation. Conditions in many prisons are deplorable. Even minimal facilities are not supplied at tehsil level prison. In India, inmates are not even screened for certain infectious illnesses, despite the fact that all inmates are given a medical check when they start serving their sentence. Sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs), HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C are all known to be common among inmates. Hostility among detainees is exacerbated by the cramped, frequently severely overcrowded housing circumstances.
“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals,” says Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
French philosopher and political activist talks about prisons in this book Discipline and Punish. He argues that prison didn’t become the principal form of punishment just because of the humanitarian concerns of the reformist. The main ideas he talks about can be grouped into four parts, torture, punishment, discipline and prison.
Report drafted by Keisha Singh, SYBA.
Session Topic: Prison Reforms in India
Speaker: Mr. Vijay Raghavan
Date: 15th December 2021.
Time: 5:00 to 6:30 PM.
Bio: Vijay Raghavan, MA in Social Work with Specialisation in Criminology and Correctional Administration (TISS) and Ph.D. in Social Work (TISS) Working with the Centre for Criminology and Justice (CCJ), School of Social Work, TISS, since 2005, and currently as a Professor with the Centre.
What comes to one’s mind when they think about prisons…Human society has suffered from crimes and deviance for a long time. ‘Crime is a very normal part of society', says Durkheim. He also says, ‘Crime helps define outer boundaries of that society.’ Homosexuality has been criminalised in one place and not others.
70 %of the undertrials are yet to be convicted. Bureaucracy has crept into Indian prisons as well. Undertrials can wear normal clothes, meet families, have free legal aid, etc. The judge-population ratio in India stood at 21.03 judges per million people in 2020, which considering the population of India (1300 million), isn’t a good ratio. When talking about the police-population ratio, the ratio stands at 155.78 per lakh persons whereas the sanctioned strength is 195.39 per lakh persons.
Maharashtra tops justice delivery in India, southern states dominate ranking 29% judges are women, in High Courts only 11.4% 2/3rd inmates are undertrials, according to India’s Justice Report by Tata Trust.
West Bengal has its own correction act, the West Bengal Correctional Services Act, 1992. It is maintained by the state government for proper management, administration, functioning of prisons and reformation of prisoners to become good citizens.
In India, overpopulation has exacerbated the issue of sanitation. Conditions in many prisons are deplorable. Even minimal facilities are not supplied at tehsil level prison. In India, inmates are not even screened for certain infectious illnesses, despite the fact that all inmates are given a medical check when they start serving their sentence. Sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs), HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C are all known to be common among inmates. Hostility among detainees is exacerbated by the cramped, frequently severely overcrowded housing circumstances.
“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals,” says Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
French philosopher and political activist talks about prisons in this book Discipline and Punish. He argues that prison didn’t become the principal form of punishment just because of the humanitarian concerns of the reformist. The main ideas he talks about can be grouped into four parts, torture, punishment, discipline and prison.
Report drafted by Keisha Singh, SYBA.
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