Why are Indian prisons so overcrowded? | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW

Following an increase in prison overcrowding in India, critics are calling for further reforms to the judicial process, to shorten the length of trials and reduce the number of prisoners.

Three out of four people held in Indian prisons are on trial, according to the latest official data from the country’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its Prison Statistics India report for 2020. Meanwhile, an average district prison operates at an occupancy rate of 136%.

In total, the country has more than 488,500 prisoners held in 410 district prisons.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International noted that the number of sub-trials in India is “far higher than in other democracies around the world” and that in 2017 the country had the third highest sub-trial population in Asia.

Prison overcrowding on the rise

Although the number of convicted prisoners in prisons decreased by 22% in 2020 compared to the previous year, the number of inmates awaiting trial increased.

However, another startling study by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) in December last year showed that prison occupancy had increased by 23% in the past two years, with more than 900,000 additional arrests. made during the pandemic alone. The prison occupancy rate has risen on average from 115% to 133%.

“The number of unconvicted prisoners is increasing every day. The time they spend in prison awaiting trial has also increased over the past five years. The increase in prison population requires immediate decongestion measures,” said Madhurima Dhanuka, prison reform program manager at CHRI, says DW.

Among the prisoners housed in various jails were more than 20,000 women, 1,427 of them with children.

In 2020, as a nationwide lockdown was announced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s Supreme Court issued guidelines to set up high-level committees in every state to decongest prisons. However, within a year many had only been released temporarily and returned to prison.

Experts say courts need to step in to establish criteria for further liberalizing bail, especially in cases where trials are dragging on and defendants have been in jail for years.

Calls to reduce trial time

“We do not have institutions or mechanisms through which the voices of detainees can be heard. Technically, detainees are entitled under law, international and national, to human rights and the right to dignity and well-being,” said historian Uma Chakravarti. and filmmaker, told DW.

“In my opinion, the writ of the Indian constitution stops at the prison gates,” she added.

Statistics also show that more than 70% of these remand prisoners are from marginalized classes, castes, religions and genders.

Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir reported the highest proportion of detainees on trial, followed by Bihar, Punjab, Odisha and Maharashtra. Many of these states reported well over 100% prison occupancy.

Pratiksha Baxi, an associate professor at the Center for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, who has worked on prison reforms, pointed out that death rates in custody increased by 7% in 2020.

“The court must issue directives”

So-called unnatural deaths, which include suicides, accidents and murders in prisons, have increased by more than 18%, she pointed out.

“There is no information on why 56 inmates died in 2020. These numbers prove that lockdown rules in prisons are increasing violence and disease in custody,” Baxi told DW.

“It is high time that governments and courts take a public health and gender-sensitive approach to the issue of the mass incarceration of prisoners during trials. The involvement of prison guards in holding these detention spaces accountable dark must be restored,” she added.

Many have now called on the Supreme Court to explore measures to release prisoners on regular bail so decongestion can be made possible.

“The court must also issue guidelines to prioritize trials and appeals when the accused is in custody and, where appropriate, move to day-to-day trials so that cases that have been tried for more than five years are concluded at most. early.” Dhanuka said.

Over the past year, the courts have heard numerous petitions from prisoners regarding denial of medical care, food, legal documents, home-cooked meals, denial of video conferencing and prison visits by families, and the confiscation of letters.

While prison overcrowding is a given, activists have also found that it has a serious gender dimension that is often overlooked, particularly when it relates to bail, parole, temporary absence and detention.

“Our research shows that women make up less than 5% of all inmates. We believe that sexual and gender minority inmates on trial do not pose a serious enough threat to society to be impossible to find non-custodial alternatives for them, as they wait for investigations and trials to be completed,” said Navsharan Singh, a feminist researcher at DW.

Singh believes that alternatives to the prison system must be offered to all women and gender minorities.

Authorities have admitted in the past that overcrowding is a problem in prisons, but said it would take “systemic change” to free the population from under-trials.

“This decision needs to be taken at the highest political level and state governments also need to conduct a review of prison populations and effectively address the issue of prison overcrowding,” a senior Home Office official told DW.

Edited by: Leah Carter