About Prison reforms: What numbers don’t tell us

Source: The post is based on the article “What numbers don’t tell us” published in The Hindu on 19th September 2022.

Syllabus: GS 2 – Prison reforms

Relevance: problems associated with prisoners and solutions for it.

News: The National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) Prison Statistics India Report highlights that 9,180 prisoners are with mental illness, 150 deaths occurred by suicide, and five prisoners with schizophrenia and epilepsy have died.

The report is alarming and there is a need to look into the condition of the prisoners and find solutions for it.

What are the problems with prisoners in India?

Prisons were considered a place for rehabilitation for prisoners but it has become a place of despair, hopelessness and helplessness for prisoners.

Prisons are overcrowded with the high number of undertrial prisoners (70 percent) than convicts.

According to the report of NCRB, more than half of those with mental illness were under trial (58.4% were under trial while 41.3% were convicts).

Deathworthy report on mental health and the death penalty reveals that over 60% of death row prisoners had mental illness and they have not been provided treatment.

India’s National Mental Health Policy, 2014 considers prisoners a class of people vulnerable to mental ill-health.

What are the reasons for distress among the prisoners?

First, there might be several reasons for the distress such as loss of liberty, loss of close contact with loved ones, loss of autonomy, etc.

Second, violence and overcrowding is generally associated with imprisonment which is a wrong perspective. This also affects the mental health of the prisoners.

Third, there is a fear among the prisoners of each other, and they also lack trust amongst them.

What can be the further course of action?

First, there is a need for reform, rehabilitation or reintegration. These will make prisoners confident in their lives, in their choices and in their ability to take decisions and be responsible and accountable for them. The rehabilitation process should be empathetic and caring instead of violence.

Second, there is also a need to look at social and structural perspectives of the prisoner’s mental health along with medical treatments.