{"id":92986,"date":"2021-03-08T11:05:41","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T05:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=92986"},"modified":"2021-03-09T10:53:34","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T05:23:34","slug":"appointment-of-police-officers-for-prison-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/appointment-of-police-officers-for-prison-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Appointment\u00a0of Police officers for Prison Management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Synopsis: <\/strong>The appointment\u00a0of Police officers for Prison management is not right. It is against strengthening the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Recently, the Uttarakhand government issued a notification to post IPS officers as superintendents of Prisons.<\/li>\n<li>A PIL has been filed against the government\u2019s decision before the Uttarakhand High Court.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are the reasons for Posting police officers to monitor Prisons?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First,<\/strong> it was done for strengthening security and to control corruption.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second, <\/strong>prison departments have limited strength at the officer level, leading to malpractices. So, the suggested solution is to bring fresh talent from outside, who would not have any long-term stake in the system.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why appointing police officers to prison is criticised?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Though there are problems in <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/prison-reforms-in-india-21st-november-2020\/\">Prison management<\/a>, the process of appointing police officers is adhoc and short-sighted. Because of the following reasons,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First,<\/strong> the skill requirement for police is different from a prison officer. For instance, police personnel recruited and trained to detect crime and maintain law and order. Whereas, prison officers are recruited and trained to reform and rehabilitate offenders.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second, it is not legal and amounts to a violation of rules and procedures. For example,<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>The decision contradicts the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Jail (Group A and B) Service Rules, 1982.<\/li>\n<li>Also, appointing police officers in prisons amounts to a violation of the <strong>principle of separation of powers<\/strong> enshrined in our Constitution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Third<\/strong>, it is against the philosophy of <strong>correctional administration. It<\/strong>\u00a0goes against the Prison reform committee reports like the <strong>Justice Mulla Committee on Prison Reforms Report<\/strong> (1983), <strong>the Justice Krishna Iyer Committee on Women Prisoners Report<\/strong> (1987). They advocated;\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Prisons should be houses of reformation and rehabilitation of prisoners and their families.<\/li>\n<li>Creation of a specialised All India Prison Service along the lines of the IPS or IAS.<\/li>\n<li>Currently, Bihar is the only state which continues to have an IAS officer heading the prison department.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Finally<\/strong>, posting IPS officers as superintendents of Prisons amounts to police custody. It is because it gives the police direct access to prisoners during \u201cjudicial custody\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>First, <\/strong>we need to invest in the prison system in terms of resources and staff. It can be done in the following ways,\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Appointing social workers and counselors in sufficient numbers.<\/li>\n<li>Conducting regular training in human rights and social reintegration for prison staff.<\/li>\n<li>Filling vacancies, which are as high as 30 to 40 percent as per the <strong>India Justice Report 2020.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second, <\/strong>institutionalize practices that will promote <strong>upward mobility<\/strong> for prison officers. For example, rewarding good work with promotions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Third,<\/strong> need to uniformize their career growth equally across states. It will motivate them for better work performance.\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>For example,\u00a0in a few states, a prison officer who starts his career as a deputy superintendent of a central prison can end up as Additional IG or IG Prisons. Whereas in most states, one can only rise to the rank of DIG Prisons.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: The appointment\u00a0of Police officers for Prison management is not right. It is against strengthening the criminal justice system. Background Recently, the Uttarakhand government issued a notification to post IPS officers as superintendents of Prisons. A PIL has been filed against the government\u2019s decision before the Uttarakhand High Court. What are the reasons for Posting&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/appointment-of-police-officers-for-prison-management\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Appointment\u00a0of Police officers for Prison Management<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1399],"class_list":["post-92986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-soc_7","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}