PRISONS ACT - POLITY
News: Centre prepares new Model Prisons Act
with focus on reform
What is in the news?
●
The Ministry of Home
Affairs has prepared the ‘Model Prisons
Act 2023,’ that will replace a British era law to overhaul the prison
administration, which will focus on the reformation and rehabilitation of
inmates.
Key takeaways:
●
The MHA assigned the task
of revising the Prisons Act, 1894, to the Bureau
of Police Research and Development.
●
The bureau, after holding
wide-ranging discussions with state prison authorities and correctional
experts, among others, prepared the draft, which culminated in the 2023 Act.
●
Along with the Prisons Act, 1894, the Prisoners Act, 1900,
and the Transfer of Prisoners Act, 1950 have also been reviewed by the MHA,
and their relevant provisions have been assimilated into the Model Prisons Act,
2023.
Salient features of the Model Prisons Act, 2023:
1. Prohibition of illegal gadgets:
●
Provisions of punishment
for prisoners and jail staff for use of prohibited items such as mobile phones
in and management of high security jails, open jail.
2. Safen the society from habitual offenders:
●
Provisions for protecting the society from the criminal
activities of hardened criminals and habitual offenders. Special care will
be given to the habitual offenders to reform and rehabilitate them.
3. Legal aids:
●
It also contains
provisions for providing legal aid to prisoners,
parole, furlough and premature release to incentivize good conduct.
4. Separate accommodation:
●
Provide separate
accommodation for women and transgender
inmates, which will secure their security inside the jail.
5. Well-being of prisoners:
●
Ensure the physical and
mental well-being of prisoners, and focus on the reformation and rehabilitation of inmates.
6. Skill development:
●
Bring about “attitudinal change towards prisoners”
and initiate vocational training and skill development for prisoners for their
reintegration into society.
7. Transparent prison administration:
●
Bring about “transparency in prison management” and
include provisions for security assessment and segregation of prisoners.
8. Individual centric management:
●
All the prisoners will be
given individual attention like Individual sentence planning and grievance -redressal.
9. Prison development board:
●
The new model act has the
provision of Prison development board, which ensures the infrastructure and
other developments inside the prison
10. Infusion of technology:
●
New Act has provisions
for the infusion of new technologies like digital attendance, CCTV camera
installation in the prison administration.
11. Video conference facility:
●
New measures for
prisoners to video conference with courts have also been introduced. Which will
improve the legal aid rights to the prisoners.
Previous prison laws in India:
1. Prisons Act, 1894:
●
It governed the
management and administration of prisons in India.
●
It defined a “prison” as
“any jail or place used permanently or
temporarily under the general or special orders of a State Government for the
detention of prisoners”, excluding police custody and subsidiary jails.
●
It classified prisoners
into three different categories according to the nature of their crimes, such
as “criminal prisoner”, “convicted criminal prisoner” and “civil prisoner”.
2. Prisoners Act 1900:
●
It was introduced with
the objective of consolidating the “several acts relating to prisoners” and
replacing the “separate enactments by a single act,
●
The Act dealt with the
prisoners within presidency towns and those outside; it also included
provisions on how to deal with lunatic prisoners and allowed prisoners to be
removed from prisons on conditions like receiving death sentences and
maintaining good behavior within prisons.
3. Transfer of Prisoners Act, 1950:
●
Which provided for the
removal of prisoners from one state prison to another.
Is the Model Prisons Act, 2023, binding on states?
●
As per the provisions of
the Constitution, ‘prisons’ and ‘persons detained therein’ fall under the State
List.
●
This means that the
responsibility of prison management and administration solely vests with the
state government, which alone is competent to make appropriate legislative
provisions in this regard.
●
Moreover, since there
were “several lacunae in the existing Prisons Act, which regulates the prison
administration” in most states and UTs, the government thought it fit to revise
the law to align it with “modern day needs and requirements of prison
management”.
●
The ministry also
clarified while announcing the 2023 Act that it “may serve as a guiding
document for the States” so that they may benefit from its adoption in their
jurisdictions.
Issues in the prison administration:
1. Higher pendency of Cases:
●
As per the records of
2022, over 4.7 crore cases are pending in Indian courts across different levels
of the judiciary.
●
Also, according to National Crime Records Bureau
(NCRB)-Prison Statistics India, 67.2% of total prison population in India
comprises trial prisoners.
2. Overcrowding:
●
Congestion in jails,
particularly among undertrials, has been a source of concern. This is a cause
of some administrative and security threats, unsatisfactory living conditions
in the prison.
●
According to the latest
data available (till 2021), the occupancy
rate of prisons stood at 130% in 2021.
3. Corruption:
●
Corruption by prison
staff, and its less aggressive corollary, guard corruption, is common in
prisons in India.
●
Eg. In exchange for
contraband or special treatment, inmates supplement guards’ salaries with
bribes.
4. Custodial torture/ deaths:
●
The torture brutal
physical treatment in custody by police official is another major Problem of
jails in India.
●
Third degree tortures
within four walls of prison occur frequently and many times they remain
unnoticed, such cases come to light when media or human rights commission gives
any attention to it.
5. Staff Shortage and Inadequate Training:
●
The ratio between the prison staff and the prisoners in the Indian prison
is approximately 1:7. It means only one prison officer is available for 7
prisoners in India, while in the UK, 2 prison officers are available for every
3 prisoners.
6. Insufficient Legal Aid:
●
In India, the majority of
prisoners, who are in lock up as well as those in prisons, have not been tried.
The absence of legal aid until the point of trial reduces greatly the value of
the country’s system of legal representation to the poor.
7. Abuse of Prisoners
●
Physical abuse of
prisoners by the guards is another chronic problem in the prisons of India.
Women prisoners in Indian prisons are particularly vulnerable to custodial
sexual abuse.
Recommendation for Prison Reforms:
1. Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer Committee on
Women prisoners (1987):
●
Separate institutions
with women employees alone for women offenders;
●
Necessary provisions to
restore the dignity of women even if convicted.
2. Justice Amitava Roy committee:
The Supreme Court
appointed Justice Amitava Roy (retd.) Committee which gave the following
recommendations to address the overcrowding of prisons:
●
Speedy
trial remains one of the best ways to remedy
the unwarranted phenomenon of overcrowding.
●
There should be at least
one lawyer for every 30 prisoners, which is not the case at present.
●
Special
fast-track courts should be set up to deal exclusively
with petty offenses which have been pending for more than five years.
●
The concept of plea bargaining, in which the accused
admits guilt for a lesser sentence, should be promoted.
3. Recommendations of Law Commission of India
in its 268th report:
●
The Commission
recommended that those detained for offenses that come with a punishment of up
to seven years of imprisonment should be released on completing one-third of
that period and for those charged with offences that attract a longer jail term
after they complete half of that period.
●
It also recommended that
the police should avoid needless arrests, while magistrates should refrain from
mechanical remand orders.
Supreme court judgements regarding prison management:
Re Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons case (2016):
●
The SC delivered a
landmark judgment which regarded the legal and constitutional rights of
prisoners in India, especially the under-trial prisoners.
●
The Prisoners are no less
human than others and therefore must be treated with dignity.
●
In compliance with the
SC’s directions, the Model Prison Manual
2016 provides for the establishment of an Under-trial Review Committee among others.
WAY FORWARD:
1. Making Prisons reformation Institutions:
●
The ideal policy
prescription of making prisons into places of rehabilitation and “correctional institutions” will only be
achieved when the issues of unrealistically low budgetary allocation, high
workloads and the unmindfulness of the police regarding procedural safeguards
are addressed.
2. Upskilling of prison staffs:
●
There is a need to make
the police forces more sensitive and train them in emerging technologies as
suggested by the PM in a recent conference.
3. Use of technology:
●
Technologies which are
introduced around the world for better prison management should be adopted in
India with Indian conditionality.
●
Eg. CCTV surveillance,
sensor based alert system, etc.
4. Reforms in criminal justice system:
●
Criminal justice system
needs to be reformed as well.
●
Additionally, there is a
need to enact a bail law to make the
provision of bail more objective, reducing subjectivity practiced by lower
courts as suggested by the supreme court.
5. Ensure human rights:
●
The basic human rights of
the prisoners should be protected in line with the provisions of the
constitution of and international covenant on rights of prisoners.