An agricultural work camp in Bikaner for prisoners. Photo: Smita Chakraburtty
Following a top court initiative, the centre will frame guidelines for setting up open prisons which are a far cheaper and more humane approach to rehabilitating prisoners
~By Sucheta Dasgupta
There are different strokes for different people. This is especially seen in India’s prisons where the rich and powerful enjoy deluxe accommodation, while for the socio-economically disadvantaged, it a hellhole. The country’s 1,387 closed prisons suffer from overcrowding, with an occupancy that is 14 percent above their capacity, with 67 percent of the population comprising undertrials.
But not for long. Following a closed door meeting on February 13 between stakeholders and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), there is a push towards setting up one or two open jails in each one of the 640 districts of the country and guidelines will be framed in this regard. Soon, it will be “kehnewale jail kahen, lekin yahan par hai khushiyali (this may be called a jail by name, but here we are thriving)”, as the ditty from Army, a film inspired by the iconic Do Aankhen Barah Haath, goes.
JUDICIAL ENTERPRISE
This new initiative is thanks to a major push by the Supreme Court. In December 2017, an apex court bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta directed the centre to hold a meeting of prison officials while hearing a writ petition on Inhuman conditions in 1,382 prisons vs the state of Assam (2013). The petition was registered in July 2013 by an order of the same court which came in response to a letter by former Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti to the then chief justice, Altamas Kabir. The missive drew Justice Kabir’s attention to the problems of overcrowding, custodial deaths, suicides and gross inadequacy of prison staff. The open prison system effectively addresses all these problems.
The December bench’s order stated: “The MHA to have a meeting with the Directors General and Inspectors General of Prison of all the state governments and Union territories to see the feasibility of establishing open prisons.” At present, there are only 63 open prisons in 17 states housing 6,000 inmates.
There are other very strong arguments for open prisons. It has been found that closed prisons are 78 times more expensive than open prisons, and are, therefore, a drain on the taxpayer. Yet the outcome is better, with a dramatic impact on recidivism, for the prisoner gets rehabilitated into society and does not perpetrate another crime, according to experts. He learns to take care of his family, function as an individual and contribute to society. This system is thus much more suited to implementing the vision of restorative justice than retributive justice, the older goal. Technological revolution, be it smart phones or surveillance, have also rendered closed prisons irrelevant in most cases.
OPEN PRISON
An open prison is one that functions with minimum security. The prisoners go out of the jail after a first roll call and must return before the second. They are required to earn their living should they live with their families inside the jail. The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, popularly known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, state that open prisons provide the best conditions for the rehabilitation of carefully selected prisoners.
The Supreme Court’s proposal, however, is not a first. The All-India Committee on Jail Reforms constituted in 1980 had recommended development of open prisons in each state and Union territory similar to the Sanganer open camp. Started in 1963, Sanganer is the largest open prison in Rajasthan and houses nearly 400 prisoners. With its 29 open prisons, the state is indeed a path-breaker in this respect.
Credit goes to independent researcher Smita Chakraburtty, a former lecturer of Loreto College, Kolkata, for bringing this information out of the shadows. Her work created awareness about open prisons and Rajasthan’s successful experiment in this regard. It all started in 2014-15, when the Patna High Court commissioned Chakraburtty to inspect all prisons in Bihar. Her report, submitted after visiting 58 prisons and talking to 30,070 prisoners on record, was published by the Bihar State Legal Service Authority. This report was taken cognizance of by both the National Human Rights Commission and the parliamentary standing committee.
DIGNITY AND LIBERTY
In 2016, the Sanganer open prison was going through an unprecedented crisis. Many of the inmates there had finished their terms. Faced with the task of evicting them to make way for new entrants, D-G, Prisons, Ajit Singh, was in a quandary and asked Chakraburtty to come over for a visit. Chakraburtty tells India Legal: “The prisoners were fasting. They had a job in the locality; their wives, children, everyone stayed over there. They pleaded with me to talk to the authorities. One of them said: ‘My son is having an exam, how can I change location? Please let me stay for just six more months’. It made me think, something is very right with this system.”
The prisoners here worked according to their capacity. A majority were construction labourers. Some were primary school teachers. A few were employed at a weaving unit nearby and, interestingly, a good number of them worked as security guards. Their work gave them a high moral standing within the community. The prisoners took care of their own expenses. The only thing the prison department paid for was their lodging.
Chakraburtty did a comparative study between the two kinds of prison systems. Her findings were that the expenses per prisoner per month in a closed prison are between Rs 7,000 and Rs 10,000, while in an open prison, it was just `500. The reduction in cost comes from staff salaries. In a closed prison, there is one staff per six prisoners, while in an open one, there is one staff for 80 prisoners. Chakraburtty also found that the incidence of jailbreak in open prisons was rarer than in regular prisons. Her study was cited in the ongoing case in the Supreme Court by Gaurav Agarwal, senior advocate and amicus curiae.
WOMEN AND UNDERTRIALS
Meanwhile, the road to complete criminal justice reform is daunting and long. According to Chakraburtty, “there are no completely male and female open prisons in Rajasthan”. However, reports say that only four open prisons accommodate women in the entire country. These also include the Yerawada Open Jail in Pune and the Women’s Open Prison in Thiruvananthapuram.
This, says Chakraburtty, is due to the open prison rules set in 1972 which bar single and unmarried prisoners from staying in there. This provision was put in place to avoid unwanted custodial deaths resulting from people falling sick inside prisons with no one to look after them. But prisoners become friends inside prisons, she says, and adds that to deal with this category of cases, Rajasthan prisons have come up with a rule that says that a fellow prisoner and/or her family who are friends with a single prisoner should give in writing that they will take care of her if she is unwell. One can even register their partner and stay in an open prison, says Chakraburtty. But it is not so in other states. The guidelines for the functioning of semi-open prisons in Delhi approved by the lieutenant-governor explicitly disallow women entrants.
However, change is around the corner. Tihar Prisons commandant Abhishek Dixit tells India Legal that soon, a women’s open prison will be set up inside the premises. “Open prisons are the ideal buffer between closed prisons and society. Without them, the prisoner might succumb to the stigma of being a ‘jailbird’ in the outside world. We are currently planning to convert some of the old staff quarters into a women’s open prison,” he says.
In Tihar, most convicted prisoners spend about 12 years of their sentences behind bars before becoming eligible for semi-open prisons. Two years of good conduct here makes them eligible to move into open jails. The open prison system in Tihar was started in 2013 during the tenure of D-G, Prisons, Vimla Mehra. However, this period of waiting to move into an open prison varies from state to state. For example, in jails in Rajasthan, it is just five years in total.
Even so, the huge population of undertrials, who typically spend a long time behind bars, is currently ineligible for open prisons. “Undertrial prisoners spend a long time in jail and many get acquitted from jail, so their incarceration does not make any sense. My first proposition is having undertrial prisoners in open prisons. Right now, the process is to have only convicted prisoners stay in open prisons,” Chakraburtty says. “If we have prisoners convicted in a court of law in open prisons, and we can trust them in open prisons, then undertrial prisoners stand a much better ground to be there.”
NEEDS AND CHALLENGES
Other issues bothering prison officials are hygiene, sanitation and employment options. “In all open jails here, there have been work camps—mostly agricultural work camps and, in some cases, industrial ones. But it was found that as time went by, the original avenues of employment shrank. So we have to provide prisoners with vocational training. Also, with families staying over, an overhaul of the drainage and sewerage systems is in order. We also need to focus on setting up more medical facilities,” Additional D-G, Prisons, Rajasthan, Bhupendra Singh, told India Legal. New health clinics are in the pipeline.
The two important areas for opening new prisons, Agarwal feels, are acquiring land and finding jobs. “In Rajasthan, open prisons have been around for more than 50 years and are part of the institutional process. But generating that kind of social acceptance for the inmates elsewhere, especially in an urban setting, so that they can be trusted on the job remains a challenge,” he says.
Yet, even in less evolved forms, the open prison system has yielded sufficient dividends, and greatly improved the quality of life as well as the future prospects of prisoners. Says Rupesh, an inmate of Tihar’s semi-open prison who manages a staff canteen on the premises and is serving time for a murder: “I have been a military engineer services contractor. My present work has helped increase my social skills and taught me how to manage the negativity and disgrace associated with my situation, and my own feelings as well. When I am released, I hope to find employment in a shoemaker’s factory in Mayapuri.”
Then there is Kalyan Sharma, grandfather and former halwai from Chandni Chowk’s Paranthewale Galli, who was a pehelwan for 15 years and killed a man in a fit of rage. He says: “I love children and long to see the faces of my grandkids. I did not lie before the judge and for the sin that I committed, I have suffered. If I have to do anything more to atone for it, I will. But I do believe I deserve a second chance.”
To transform their lives and others like them, the government should give open prisons a fair chance.