DailyPost 2892
THE FLAILING JAIL ADMINISTRATION
In the last few years, not jailbreaks, but comforts in the jails have been catching attention and rightly. Does that speak of the flailing jail administration in the last decade or so or it has been all along but has come out in the open only now. Might be because of the ease with which information, inclusive of pictures and videos, can cross all barriers now. Additionally, given the hue and cry, police and governments are forced to respond, react and compulsorily act to assuage popular sentiments. By rational logic, information available in the public domain and some reverse engineering based on the results of the correctional services, jails are the dark underbelly of the criminal justice system.
Some jails were infamous for notorious jailbreaks in the past, of criminals running durbars, of novices getting hardened, of developing bonds which would fructify later in the outside world, not to say of drugs and other nefarious activities. How strong the jail administration would be given the status aa mentioned above is left to anyone’s imagination. They have their own force not greatly suited to the changing times of management skills and technology facilitation. They treat themselves as the lower cousins of the police having their own issues. The role of corruption in the degeneration of jails now does not leave anyone in doubt.
Legally castigated to becoming a correctional institution was supposed to be the jail’s journey. Today jails are neither. All the notoriety mentioned earlier for which jails would come into limelight off and on, is now overshadowed by leakage of details of how jails treat their VIP prisoners. The person can be a politician, businessman, celebrity et al. It came into national recognition in a big way by the revelations of VIP treatment being meted out to Sasikala in the Bangalore Central Jail in 2017. Literally, what the jail administration did, can make us hang our heads in shame. That nature of collaboration between powerful criminals (politician, celebrity etc) with the corrupt practices inside the jail meant a deadly blow to the punishment destination of the criminal justice system.
The picture and video getting viral today of Darshan again on the activities inside the Bangalore Central Jail, casts a pall of gloom on the pathetic state of jail administration here. Remorse is not what we expected from Darshan, but then what to tell about the jail administration. How close or far or involved are they in the all prevalent nefarious deeds? Satyendra Jain’s escapades in Delhi’s Tihar jail are quite often to this day. If jail fails to fully fulfil its truly legally mandated role in word and spirit, then where will the community end up, is very difficult to predict. We will leave the issues of well calibrated paroles and furloughs for some other day, but all indicate the same rot that has set in our jail administration.
THE CURRENT OPERATIONAL CHARACTER OF JAILS DOES NOT ENTHUSE EVEN AN IOTA OF FAITH AMONGST THE COMMON PEOPLE.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.