Community Participation in Prisons in India

Following a National Scoping Study conducted by CHRI and Prayas, Mumbai, that looked into the practices of diverse Non Government Organisations (NGOs) working on issues relating to prisons and rights of prisoners in 14 states across India, CHRI hosted a one-day roundtable for Community Based Organisations (CBOs), prison officials and others working in prisons reform in end March. The purpose of the roundtable was to promote a dialogue between the participating civil society groups and the government; understand their particular concerns and to look at where and how community participation is feasible; reassess allocation of time and resources; and highlight neglected areas to be addressed in future. The roundtable also provided a platform to the participants to voice their particular concerns with a view to creating a more coordinated movement. The roundtable promoted this idea and was successful in identifying avenues to make this possible. Some of the recommendations that emerged from the meeting are:

Access to Prisons: As access to prisons is not easy because of security concerns, the need for specialist community interventions was emphasised. The participants agreed that any wider community involvement should be well defined and conducted responsibly. It is in this context that Additional Director General of Police & Inspector General of Prisons, Karnataka, Mr. S.T. Ramesh stated that prisons were not, and could not be, ‘freely accessible public places’. Therefore there was a need to have a clear focus amongst the organisations interested to work in prisons about their angle of intervention and whether they like to work at a micro or macro level. Mr. Ramesh emphasised the importance of transparency and its potential to expose, if not solve, many ills. While community involvement can serve to combat much of the mystery surrounding prisons, fuelled in part by uninformed, misleading negative portrayals by the media, it was suggested that prison officers should be more receptive towards community interventions.

Collaboration between civil society and prison administration: For successful community involvement in prisons, both community groups and prison officials need to work together, making joint decisions to a better acceptance of each other. Prisons in India are governed by archaic Prisons Act of 1894. Since prisons in India fall under ‘State’ subject in the Constitution, there is no federal policy on prisons and the administration and management of prisons is subject to regional or provincial policies. Therefore there is a need for a process of mutual cooperation and coordination between prison administration and community groups, which would see the community in each region involved in deciding the extent of community involvement in correctional processes; and also in creation of accountability of such groups in the process. Other than the prison visiting system which is widely all but defunct, there is no provision for community participation in prisons, and no regulation governing intervention. This is left to the discretion of jail superintendents whose first priority has to be security and who cannot assess the credibility of every NGO seeking access.

The All India Committee of Jail Reforms recommended that public participation in prevention of crime and treatment of offenders must be made a part of our national policy on prisons. However, these recommendations have not been implemented. The Report had also meticulously laid down; the selection procedure and criteria that should be considered while engaging representatives of the community in prisons. Therefore it was recommended that community needs to be involved to extend all possible help and cooperation to the treatment devices and rehabilitation programmes that enable an offender to return to society as a normal citizen.

Accreditation of NGOs: To heighten the legitimacy of active NGOs in prisons, and to improve access for groups whose services matched the needs of the prisoners and prison administration, the possibility of accreditation was discussed. Key performance indicators need to be identified to assist the prison administration in the decision making process. Accreditation criteria could range across several factors including knowledge, expertise, performance, track record, commitment level, funds, and reputation for humanitarian work. While there is a mushrooming of spiritual and faith based organisations in prisons, there is a real dearth of interest groups intervening for human resource management of prisons (providing training), developing strategies to involve other departments, providing legal aid and imparting life skills to prisoners which would be useful for them on the long run. Therefore, it was suggested that a needs-based assessment should be done for each prison to recognise the most suited type of community intervention.

Public awareness about the state of prisons: Prisons are considered as social dump yards; for once a person is relegated he is easily forgotten. Once a person enters the prison, he/she is labelled as an outcast and a threat to the society, which stays with him forever. We have locked away and easily forgotten 3,58,368 people out of which 66.2 per cent have not been proved guilty. The general perception in our society is that all prisoners are sadistic, heinous, pleasure seeking criminals. This misrepresents the fact that only 5.2 per cent of convicts are repeat offenders. It was felt that there was a need for community based organisations to make efforts towards spreading awareness about the social construct of prisons. Exposure to the current prison conditions would clarify the present tainted vision they have.

Prison Lobby Group: The roundtable also highlighted the need for an informal ‘prison lobby group’. It opened avenues to constructively voice the expectations of both the prison administration and NGOs, the hurdles to their realisation; identifying areas of common ground to build a robust model or path to take up future initiatives. Equally important is identifying areas and underlying causes - of disagreement requiring further dialogue. This forum could also assist in the referral of local issues and cases of individual prisoners to other NGOs better placed to address the particular problem. Due to the vastness of geographical location of the organisations, it was suggested that regional coalitions and networks could be formed to share information, knowledge and experiences on a regular basis.

CHRI hopes that bringing together persons key to engendering change in prisons, to exchange knowledge, build capacities, assess innovation and network with like-minded interested functionaries, will catalyse change from within, creating interfaces conducive to future cooperation.