Shownotes:

The core purpose of the partnership between The Purpose Room and The India Justice Report is about helping raise awareness and understanding of the Indian justice system and also getting ordinary citizens to understand, be aware and curious about the justice system. The aim of course is to discuss how the delivery of quality justice must be seen as a priority and become real in the lives of everyone. 

In the first episode Maja Daruwala, Chief Editor of the India Justice Report, and a barrister from Lincolns Inn and Valay Singh, Project Lead of the @India Justice Report spoke about the purpose behind India's first ever ranking of states on their capacity to deliver justice and what that means

Episode two with Surya Prakash B S DAKSH a civil society organisation working on judicial reforms and Radhika Jha, a lead researcher for the Status of Policing in India Report series from Common Cause focused on on budgeting in the justice system, the availability of funds, underutilisation, prioritisation or lack of it, access to justice, the quality of justice and more…

The third episode focuses on the status of women in policing in India. My guests Meeran Chadha Borwankar and Devika Prasad spoke about the systemic issues that hold women back, and what actions can be taken to reach the target numbers. 

In episode four Jacob Punnose ex-DGP and State Police Chief of Kerala and Jayanto Choudhury ex-DG NSG and ex-DGP Assam Police talk about the systemic issues that ail India policing - conditions of work; budgets; internal culture; accountability; public perception etc.

This week my guests Prof Murali karnam, a research scholar on Prison Reforms and Penology and Mr Somesh Goyal, Former dg Himachal Police and former Director General of (Prisons) speak about what can be done a) to make the administration of prisons stronger so that prisons are not places of violence and violation of rights b) what needs to be done to - to turn prison administration away from the warder-lockup-control-punishment mode to that of genuine reform and rehabilitation of prisoners.

Whether it is the UK or India it is important that all of us understand the contours of the system that governs us and not just for the sake of accountability!

Listen to this episode and catch up with previous episodes here👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Memorable passages from the podcast

👉🏾 Thank you. Mr. Goyal, Professor Karnam, Maya and Vallay for making time to be here today for the third in our series on prisons where today we are talking about strengthening prison administration. So thank you very much for making time today. And we'll get started with the questions right away. So, considering the background that we've spoken about, how are prisons in India regulated? Do states have their own prison manuals or is there a common manual for all states to follow? 

👉🏾 Well, so far as the regulation of prisons is concerned, I think there are several acts like the prison act, prisoners act, prisoners identification act, temporary release of prisoners act and so on.

👉🏾 But day to day functioning of the prisons is largely governed by the prison manuals, which are very old. And there is no common prison manual as such for the whole of the country. In 2016, one model prison manual has been suggested xxxxx, and prisons being a state subject, most of the states have their own prison manuals . Few states that have adopted the model prison manual, and tailored it to suit the local requirements. I think this manual is far too elaborate, one, and you know, one size fits all, it doesn't happen. So far as the governance or the management of the prisons is concerned, there are a number of things which need to be incorporated or deleted from the model prison manual. But the fact is that this model prison manual has not been adopted by large number of states.

👉🏾 Yes, most of the states have their own manuals, at least for the first 15 years, they've been changing from time to time, as and when the High courts or Supreme courts are specifically commenting on unacceptable aspects of prison manuals. But at the same time these manuals also contain lot of rules that are not being implemented, but they still remain colonial vintage, like a whipping have not been removed in most of the states.

👉🏾 They still indicate the colonial influence. But many states have tried to revamp these manuals at the state level, but the process is very slow. At least Andhra Pradesh I can tell you it was initiated in 2004 and it was not accepted. And again, second time, five years back, it was proposed, but still it remains with the law department. So as per as the revising prison manuals, as per model prison manual is concerned, the progress is very, very slow and they're not going anywhere. There are several reasons for completely revamping these manuals as per the, model prison manual.

👉🏾 I'll add, You know, Himachal Pradesh it took us five years to convince our home department that we are not taking away any of the powers of the district magistrate or bureaucracy, by implementing this model prison act. There was a huge suspicion, they didn't have any qualms about the clauses of the manual. Then I sat down with the home secretary I said, "You tell me, are you afraid that your power is being taken away" he smiled. I said, "okay, let's touch those things, let's amend wherever you think district magistrate needs to have his say, I'll do it, but I want the larger, good to prevail. This manual needs to be accepted". And after five years, we were able to do it. The second thing about the manual is, it brings so much of economic burden on the state that the Babu sitting in home department needs to know, at least far enough to know how many more crores are going to be pumped into the prison department without any return on investment. So this delays the whole implementation of the manual and no other reason I could see in the last five years struggle in getting it approved. 

👉🏾 Yes, actually, I completely agree with Mr. Goyal, you know, the prison manual specifies the standard of human resources and infrastructure for the management of prisons. So the departments requires to enhance human and financial resources to bring these standards for implementation. But at the same time, there are no planning and research wings within the prison departments, which can forecast the requirements of prison for future.

👉🏾 And as Mr Goyal said if we want to meet the standards of model prison manual, after adopting them into the state manuals, it requires a huge recruitment. It also requires a huge financial outlays for which, you know, governments are not ready. So therefore this is very, very important reason for not adopting the model prison manual.

👉🏾 And another trend is the states might adopt it, but they may not do anything, that also I've seen many changes are included in the prison manual. But the prisons are not overhauled or revamped as per the standards, because they will just remain as standards in the prison manual.

👉🏾 Well, it's not a lost case altogether. I can say that in four years, I was able to add 40% more staff in Himachal Pradesh. You have to convince people. Problem that I have seen is why new prisons were not getting made, why things were not moving is something to do with the prison leadership also. I mean if you take interest, if you meet people, put your points across, it happens. The pace may be slow not to your liking, but the change does take place. So I think with persistence things will move, things have moved. 

👉🏾 I completely agree, Mr. Goyal, that in Himachal Pradesh one advantage you had is that, you know, your number of prisoners is less, but at the same time, it is your leadership. Similarly, the leadership in Telangana also was very much convinced, especially Mr. VK Singh was very much convinced about what needs to be done. He has done everything within his power to convince the government. When government was not convinced he was able to generate resources for the department. But my own feeling is in majority of the states that the leaders of the prison department are just in charge while they have full-time job in police department. In the adversarial system of criminal justice system that we have, the police when they head the department, they look at the whole issue from the perspective of the victims and that completely colours, the quality of work.

👉🏾 Therefore, my view is that most of the prison leaders, prison DGPs were themselves were not convinced about the kind of quality of work required for the management of the huge mass of people that we incarcerate. For instance, for a year, we are incarcerating some 18 lakh people. I don't think even at the level of BPRND also we have a planning and a researching wing which actually forecast how much of human resources, how much of financial resources are required for the coming 10 years in order to meet the demands of the criminal justice system.

👉🏾 That's one issue, but I feel that since the 80% of prisoners are under trial prisoners, if that burden is not there on the prison department. Then I think within the existing resources also most of the prison management may be able to, give a quality of life for prisoners. But I think the large chunk of resource and the energies of the department is going towards management of the under trial prisoners for whom you can't take up any reformative activities. 

👉🏾 Well you see, to give an example of Himachal and North India, the recruitment and prisons is done at two levels. One is at the Warder level, equivalent to a Constable. and the other is at the level of assistant superintendent of jail. So that is the officer cadre. For Warders, you need 12 plus and for assistant superintendent of jail, the requirement is a degree. Even if we say that some qualifications are required, are there any universities training any graduates or undergrads in any programs in corrections, where people could get education and make informed decisions about joining a particular service. So that is where we are caught. And qualifications, it is the same militaristic standards of measurements, of physical measurements, physical fitness tests, and small written test, that's about it. The more important thing is, whatever human resource you induct, how you mould it, that is more important, I think we'll touch upon it later. 

👉🏾 Yes. In Andhra Pradesh, in Tamil Nadu, even in Kerala also I see that especially the officer are recruited as part of state civil service. And for most of the people who become, who enter into prison service at a deputy jailer, asst superintendent level prison service has never been a preferred service for them among. It’s not preferred among the revenue police and fire services.

👉🏾 At the same time at the lower level, the qualifications of the staff are also increasing over period of time. For instance, post to graduates are entering into even Warder level positions. Well, this is a very positive development that they will be able to manage prisoners better than the semi-literate warders of yester years. 

👉🏾 It also implies these lower level employees join the department only as a stop gap and results in heavy turnover in that department. Unless there is a clear cut opportunities for promotions and job satisfactions are spelt out well in advance then only they will be able to get people who are highly motivated and who will choose the prison service. But I agree with Mr Goyal that it's a failure of universities, which are not able to cater to the needs of this very important part of the criminal justice system that it presents that they're not clearly designing, barring one or two degrees 

👉🏾 Well promotions are natural.When they join the service, say Warder can superannuate as an officer.  Warder goes on to become head warder.

The promotion, career progression is provided in every service and it may not be as lucrative or as fast as in the police because the department strength is very less in the prisons. So the opportunities would also be lesser, but they are promoted while all the people who need to be promoted, under the non gazetted ranks is done by the DG Prisons himself.

👉🏾 And there is no delay there, unless there are some court cases. But when the nature of the rank changes from non-gazetted to gazetted then it goes to the state public service commission and the home department that is where delay of maybe six months or a year. Sometimes it takes place, but otherwise promotions in the cadre, in the departments are not an issue.At least I ensured in Himachal Pradesh that not even a single higher vacancy was left unfilled.

👉🏾 See, way back in 1980 Mulla committee report says that, there should be at least three promotions for every employee who joins the prison at a lower level. My own experience in two states here is at best they get one promotion. Many times they don't get even that. And in some states like, you know, west Bengal, wherever they care there is a direct recruitment for every level of cadre, the promotions are very hard to come by.

👉🏾 Because lower level cadre is directly recruited at deputy jailer level, deputy superintendent level, assistant superintendent level, jailer level, which actually forecloses the possibility of promotions for the people who enter at the lowest level. This is a very serious de-motivating factor. 

👉🏾 There is a high turnout especially among newly recruited with the higher qualifications in some states this needs to be changed. So unless we project clear way forward about their promotions and opportunities, it's difficult to motivate prison officers to commit themselves for the objectives of the prison. 

👉🏾 So far as the training is concerned, we can divide it into basic training and in-service training or the refresher training. Now for the basic training, it is generally from nine months to one year. We in Himachal don't have a training centre. We could not start it for want of land available. The most important thing is that people are sent to training academies, training institutions, wherever these are. One is who decides the training curriculum. I have serious issues with the training curriculum, that there is no research gone into devising a training curriculum for the correctional staff. All the Warders, they are trained like a police Constable. Well, some of the functions maybe similar, but largely a Warder is somebody who must be more empathetic than other people in uniform. 

👉🏾 What the job entails and what skillsets people need to have like listening, empathy,. These are completely missing from any syllabus devised by DPRND. And when I pointed it out to them, I said, why don't you see the training curriculum of some advanced countries? Learn from them, devise our own, curriculum, which is modern, which is in sync with the reform and rehabilitation ideas. But this is not happening, we are just churning out people in uniform who are insensitive, who are not motivated and looking for better job opportunities in the police or somewhere else.

👉🏾 Is anybody doing training of trainers for the prison staff? I haven't come across one. It may be for PT and drill, I'm not interested in that. I'm interested only in the correctional activities, how to run industry, how to run welfare programs, how to make these agitated people comfortable in the four walls of their barracks. Does anybody provide any training to them? No, there is no curriculum, and when I come to the refresher course, refresher training, most of the people go to ICAS or the the institute of correctional administration, we have three. Or CAPT in, Bhopal. If you look at their calendar of training programs, I think more than 80% of the training programs are on subjects other than prison subjects or the correctional subjects.

👉🏾 So the relevance of the correctional administration institutes is also questionable so far as I am concerned. I would like that, what a prison official needs to learn about his job, about the skills, that is what a refresher course should be able to give him. 

👉🏾 Yes. I completely agree with him because see, in most of the states the syllabus for training of the lower level cadre is no different from that of the police constables. So even for the higher level cadre, there is no distinct syllabus that marks them out as reformers. I mean, of course several states do not have even training centres of their own.

👉🏾 And I mean, in some states I can say that lower level cadre are being trained by the police academies because there are no prison academies. Even where they exist, there are no fully trained academicians or researchers to teach the syllabus that is related to objectives of the prison. And it is actually, retired prison officers, of course, who bring lot of practical, but very negative aspects of managing the prisons.

👉🏾 So by and large, after first training at the time of joining, many prison officers never go for refresher courses due to a shortage of staff or because relieving staff for this trainings itself is the biggest problem. So. Only BPRND is trying to, sponsor few trainings occasionally and for the past one year has taken up actual sponsoring preparation of training modules.

👉🏾 But again, this responsibility was given to only the prison officers. Of course, they should be involved there is no doubt about it,...