News February 23, 2024 India: the hidden scandal of rape in prisons Female prisoners are ‘supplied’ to male inmates of West Bengal jails, sexual abuse is commonplace and hundreds of children are born in prison. But the women are too scared to speak out.
News February 9, 2024 India: women getting pregnant in West Bengal prisons, 196 babies born Calcutta High Court raises concern over prison reforms after amicus curiae’s submission reveals shocking rise in prison pregnancies.
News January 20, 2024 India: making Maharashtra jails more liveable To control the spread of skin infections and communicable diseases in Maharashtra’s overcrowded prisons, washing machines are being inducted for prisoners to do their clothes and bedding.
News January 1, 2024 India: Telangana must announce a humane prison reform policy The Telangana Congress government should review prison practices for a fair and transparent system that promotes prisoners’ reintegration.
News December 29, 2023 India: right to life includes convict’s right to procreate The right to life includes a convict’s right to procreate, the Delhi High Court has held while granting a four-week parole to a 41-year-old murder convict serving life term so that he could have a child with his wife aged 38.
News December 15, 2023 India: despite campaign, the country saw number of prisoners increase in 2022 By December 2022, India’s prisons were filled to 131% of capacity, up one percentage point from 2021. This is despite a campaign in July last year to identify undertrial prisoners eligible for release, and the country adding 11 prisons since 2021.
News December 9, 2023 India: Delhi, U'khand jails filled with twice the capacity of inmates Despite several directions from the Supreme Court on the subhuman conditions in prisons across the country, jails continue to remain in a miserable condition. The latest figures show that Delhi and Uttarakhand have the worst situation, with almost twice the capacity of inmates in cells.
News October 30, 2023 India: how prisons struggle with mental health Poor facilities in prisons & restricted healthcare access can lead to inmates suffering from bad mental health.
News October 22, 2023 India: Parliamentary panel recommends GPS trackers to reduce overcrowding The panel noted that overcrowding and delayed justice has led to a series of consequences for both the prisoners and the criminal justice system.
News September 29, 2023 India: denied basic facilities, women prisoners impacted far worse than men On August 29, the Supreme Court sought the views of the Centre and the states on the Justice Amitava Roy Committee report submitted on December 27, 2022, underlining that the correctional justice system is “evidently gender exclusionary”.
News July 27, 2023 India: high prevalence of skin disease among prison inmates A screening camp conducted by the Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists, and Leprologists (IADVL), Kerala branch, at 10 prisons in the State has revealed that about 30% of the inmates having skin diseases had fungal infections.
News July 24, 2023 India: meet the social workers helping prisoners who languish in jail despite getting bail “Most of the prisoners whom we deal with are people who don’t have money or contacts in high places. We try to help them access their rights.”
News June 22, 2023 India: UP prisons to be known as "reform homes" Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while reviewing the condition of prisons in a high-level meeting on Thursday, gave important guidelines towards prison reform.He expressed the need to establish prisons as ‘Sudhaar Grah’ (Reform Homes) and issued instructions regarding the preparation o…
News May 26, 2023 India: Tihar Jail violence, no quick-fix solutions, judicial reforms necessary Tihar Jail, located in New Delhi, is one of South Asia’s largest and most notorious prison complexes. The prison was intended as a correctional facility, but the growing spate of violence and gang wars within the jail has cast a shadow over its reputation yet again. Why have the authorities been un…
News May 12, 2023 India: recreational activities held for kids of women prisoners Recreational activities will be organised for the children of women inmates in jail in connection with project “Khushi” a campaign of the Chhattisgarh State Legal Services Authority (SLSA) to provide a different environment to children suffering for a crime they have not committed while staying wit…
News April 27, 2023 India: central government to release special scheme to help poor inmates to pay for bail, leave prison The MHA has been contributing financially to the State Government’s efforts to upgrade and modernise the jail security infrastructure.
News February 22, 2023 India: Physiotherapy centre set up in Berhampur jail A physiotherapist voluntarily provided some basic equipment to make the unit functional
News February 22, 2023 India: Illiterate once, Ajmer jail inmates now write letters Ensuring that illiterate prisoners return home as educated people is the motto of this social reform programme in jails
News January 11, 2023 India: Delhi HC says undertrial prisoners can’t be detained in custody for an indefinite period The court says the object of jail is neither ‘punitive nor preventive’ and that deprivation of liberty is considered a punishment.
News November 28, 2022 India: prisoners on life term can be freed after 14 years The Pushkar Singh Dhami-led state cabinet on Monday gave its approval to a home (prison) department proposal that recommends release of prisoners serving life imprisonment after completing a 14 years’ jail term on the grounds of good conduct.
News November 8, 2022 India: Supreme Court reprieve for mentally ill man on death row Taking into account the plight of a condemned prisoner who became mentally-ill after being kept in the solitary confinement for more than 10 years, the Supreme Court on Friday commuted his sentence to 30 years’ jail term without remission.
News March 24, 2022 India: State extends jail term for those found using cell phone in prison Prisoners using prohibited articles inside the jail are imposed imprisonment of six months and fine not exceeding Rs 200.
News October 12, 2021 India: ‘Prison To Pride’, Yerwada Central Jail To Soon Launch Sports Training For Prisoners Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has appointed expert coaches to train players from Yerwada Central Jail.
News October 12, 2021 India: death rate up, jails to get ‘suicide watchers’ The Punjab Prisons is training a unique squad of “suicide watchers” as a study of suicides between 2017 and 2019 found that nearly 42 per cent of the victims died by suicide within a month of incarceration. Fifteen per cent could not last even 48 hours in jail.