Prison Statistics India Report 2019-2020 | UPSC

PRISON STATISTICS INDIA REPORT

• Prison administration is an important component of criminal justice system.

• Earlier system of prison with punitive attitude where in inmates were forcibly confined and deprived a variety of freedom.
• Today it is now treated as correction or improvement facility which itself indicates that there is more emphasis on reformation of prisoners than to punish them.

TYPES OF PRISON

• Prisons exist at three levels such as Taluk level, District level and Zonal/Range level.
• Jails at these levels are called as Sub Jail, District Jail and Central Jail respectively.
• Generally, capacity in terms of infrastructure, available prison staffs & powers vested in them are progressively better from Sub jail to Central Jail.

REPORT ANALYSIS

SCOPE

The report contains information on

• Prisons
• Prisoners and
• Prison infrastructure

Age-group-wise and sex-wise details of prison inmates are available in the report.

KEY FACTS

• The total number of prisons at national level has increased from 1,339 in 2018 to 1,350 in 2019, having increased by 0.82%.

• The highest number of jails was reported in Rajasthan (144) followed by Tamil Nadu (141), Madhya Pradesh (131).
• Delhi has reported the highest number of Central jails (14) in the country.
• Uttar Pradesh has reported the highest number of District jails (62).
• Tamil Nadu has reported highest number of Sub-jails (96).

OCCUAPANCY RATES

SOURCES : NCRB

• This number did reduce by a small margin, compared to data from 2001, that showed 15.2 per cent and 13.2 per cent of the total convicts and under-trials respectively were Adivasis.
• This disproportionate percentage of Adivasis reported to be in prison, however, was just the tip of the iceberg.

CONVICTION

SOURCES : NCRB

• A total of 400 prisoners, who had been sentenced for Capital Punishment, were lodged in various jails of the country as on 31 st December, 2019.
• Among the 1,44,125 convicted prisoners, the number of prisoners who were sentenced to Life Imprisonment were 77,158 accounting for 53.54% of total convicts.

UNDERTRIALS

SOURCES : NCRB

• Sixty seven percent of the people in Indian jails are undertrials – those detained in prisons during trial, investigation or inquiry but not convicted of any crime in a court of law.
• The share of the prison population awaiting trial or sentencing in India is extremely high .

• More than 25% of undertrial prisoners in 16 out of 36 states and union territories have been detained for more than one year in 2014.
• Jammu and Kashmir tops this list with 54%, followed by Goa (50%) and Gujarat (42%).
• UP leads in terms of sheer numbers (18,214).

OVERCROWDING

• According to the Prison Statistics India 2015 report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), India’s prisons are overcrowded with an occupancy ratio of 14% more than the capacity.
• More than two-thirds of the inmates are undertrials.

• The prisons are overcrowded by 77.9% in Meghalaya, by 68.8% in Uttar Pradesh and by 39.8% in Madhya Pradesh.
• In absolute numbers, UP had the highest number of undertrials (62,669), followed by Bihar (23,424) and Maharashtra (21,667).
• In Bihar, 82% of prisoners were undertrials, the highest among states.

EXPENDITURE ON PRISONERS

STAFF CRUNCH

• While 33% of the total requirement of prison officials still lies vacant, almost 36% of vacancy for supervising officers is still unfulfilled.
• Delhi’s Tihar jail ranks third in terms of a severe staff crunch.
• The manpower recruited inside this prison is almost 50% short of its actual requirement.

• In the absence of adequate prison staff, overcrowding of prisons leads to rampant violence and other criminal activities inside the jails.