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Prison Administration: Reforms Needed
*** There must be endeavour to immediately streamline the prison administration and modernise the prisons which are no longer to be treated as places of punishment, torture and degraded life, writes Abdul Khaleque. ***
MODERN prison is different from its olden counterpart but carries with it the legacy of corporal punishment. deterrence, retribution, hard labour and various forms of torture and persecution. With the development of the doctrines of Human Rights and Fundamental Rights, the concept of prison has idealised moral and general education, reformation, rehabilitation of prisoners under a system of humanistic and paternalistic administration.
In Bangladesh, prison counts among its inmates the convicted and the unconvicted prisoners, detenues who come from various strata of socioeconomic and political life: and the administration is run under the statute of 1898. Broadly speaking, the administration suffers from financial constraints as a result of which marked deficiency prevails in officer and staff training, prisoners' education and correction programme and in respect of medical service, sanitation, accommodation. workshop as well as in the classification of prisoners according to age, temperament, record, length of sentence, security risk, social and economic and political status etc. The prison visiting system is ineffective, under-trial prisons suffer for long-delayed trial of their cases while prisoners against whom accusation has not been established suffer for long-delayed investigation. In fact, multiple suffering of prisoners starts from the time of arrest and police custbdy.
There was a time when private persons maintained pris-
ons. In ancient Rome, the creditor had the legal authority to arrest and confine his defaulting debtor, and mutilate his body Into pieces for birds and beasts. Historically judged. Shakespeare's Shylbck was not the moist cruel creditor. Britain nationahsed prisons in 1877 and vested the administration in a prison comrtiission Which has since modernised prisons on humanistic lines and visualised prison as an institution where people come not for punishment. but as a punishment.
Modern prison administration is run on the basis of well-defined principles and practices effectively monitored, and covered by intelligence system. Convicts are generally required to do useful work, unconvicted prisoners are not required to work unless they wish to. Payment is made for piece work or at flat-rate. Manufacture of lethal- instrument, explosive substance and any offensive thing is not allowed in workshop. In UK and USA. prisoners are allowed to work outside during day. This is called Hostel System.
With the emergence of Prison Union in recent decades in the advanced countries, prisoners enjoy privilege of visits, letters, association (PROP — Preservation of Rights of Prisoners). home leave, parole with right of appeal In case of refusal. Access to legal advice and correspondence with lawyer.
disciplinary hearing, access to independent medical opinion have been allowed in modern prison administration. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 1975 that it was breach of the European Convention to .deny a prisoner the opportunity to bring action against prison officer. The current trend in prison administration seems to be in favour of opening prisons to the public and to the press, and allocating gaol in prisoner's home area.
Prison administration in Bangladesh has the responsibility to ensure safe and peaceful living and working, and to prevent, detect and deal with breach of peace, any act of violence. and misdemeanour. For a prison to function there has to be a high standard of conformity. Prison rules list activities which constitute offence and provide for action in proven cases. In the modern prison system, such action includes caution, forfeiture or postponement of privileges and loss of remission. etc. In Bangladesh, we have the record of the most brutal killing of top political detenues by outside assassins in presence of helpless officers and staff. Besides, there have been killings of prisoners by police firing, the latest occurring in mid-December. 1996 in Jessore prison.
According to newspaper reports. the prisoners of Jessore
Jail mutinied against officers and staff, demanding fulfilment of a charter of demands which, among other things, included restoration of the period of life sentence to twenty years. The district and divisional ad-ministration in cooperation with political leaders made efforts to bring the prisoners back to discipline for a discussion preparatory to fulfilment of the charter of demands. The prisoners insisted on dialogue with the Home Minister and the Home Secretary only. The Prime Minister made a public statement assuring due consideration of the demands but there was no indication of change in attitude of the prisoners. The police action in Jessore prison cost some Hves including the life of a policeman in the confrontation. The mutiny could not spread seriously in other prisons in view of police action which reportedly did not cost life.
In the above context, we may prefer some arguments and suggestions. Arguments : (1) The mutinous occurrence in Jessore prison did not take place without any prior planning and preparation. There must have been a few sittings of prisoners In connection with the listing of demands in the charter. The officers and the staff failed in their duty to keep watch over activities of prison inmates if they would say that they did not know what the prisoners were
planning to do. (2) Normally, one would believe that the officers and the staff luiew about the preparation of charter of demands but did not anticipate that- the prisoners would go in for a mutiny during the most sensitive time of mid-Decem-ber when the country was at the peak of enthusiasm observing the Silver Jubilee of Victory in the Liberation War. (3) The intelligence agencies of the government failed to visualise that the Jubilee would inspire the prisoners also into some activities which should be covered seriously, particularly when the period of life sentence was drastically enhanced recently. (4) A dialogue with the leaders of the mutiny could perhaps be organised by bringing some of the prisoners outside on parole for the purpose.
Our suggestions are as follows :
(!) There should be an institution where prison offices and staff would receive initial and in-service training under competent teachers on subjects like psychology, human rights, character traits and behaviour, reformation, delinquency and modern prison concepts and administration.
(ii) Recruitment of officers and staff should be made with special emphasis on candidate's sharpness in intellect, coolness in temperament and embellishment in attitude towards humanism and dedication to
service. Such versatile qualities will obviously call for compensatory pay. emoluments and service status.
(Hi) The prison administration may be placed under the Ministry of Law and in a Prison Commission composed of a Judge, a psychologist, a lawyer, a doctor and a journalist.
(iv) There should be an effective panel of prison visitors In all Jails, and repprt of visitors should be gone through promptly by specified authorities to see the state of things in the prisons. Doctor, psychologist. educationist, social worker. Journalist and female personality may be included in the panel.
(v) Human Rights activists may look into allegations of torture at any place including police station and remand cell.
We must nurse the civilised view of freedom of speech which Includes the right to silence also. In the United States, when a person is arrested and brought to the station house (police station) he/she is reminded of the constitutional right to speak or not to speak, and also of the right to speak in presence of lawyer.
Conclusion : We must endeavour to immediately streamline the prison administration in the light of the principles and the practices referred to briefly hereinabove, and make sufficient budgetary allocations to modernise the prisons which are no longer to be treated as places of punishment. torture and degraded life.
The writer is former Inspector General of Police.