Prisons are reformation centres for the punished and not punishment centres for the crime. Several under-trials and convicts have realised this due to a wonderful initiative by the Charlapalli Central Prison and the Sahayam Counselling Centre of the Osmania University.
A series of confidence-building and behavioural change training programmes over a few months have changed the lives of several prisoners, who are now more confident of facing the society while those who have been released have not come back committing another offence. Repeat offenders coming back to prison was the experience earlier.
“We successfully brought some reforms using cognitive behavioural strategies with an aim to reduce offending ideation, make them visualise positive future goals and curb non-offending actions once released. The effort is towards reduction of recidivism and help to lead a life as a psycho-socially well adjusted citizen,” says C. Beena, a former Professor of Psychology at OU and who initiated the Sahayam Psychological Counselling Centre at OU.
This was part of Mahapartivartan programme launched by the Director General, Prisons, Telangana, V.K. Singh, says Dr. Beena. Named Unnati, the programme has completed five batches where target group were from under-trials to convicts to habitual offenders.
An important aspect was the inclusion of five members from the Convicted Trials section who were taken as observers.
The role of CT’s was to oversee the conduct of the sessions, help in organizing logistics, as per the Prison procedures.
“In one of the modules they played an important role which involved narration of their experience as CT inmates and their message to the participants to avoid offending ideas. The story of their crime and penalty imposed, hardships and experiences related to time, space, food and deprivation from family in the prison were presented to emotionally connect with the participants,” said K. Venkateshwar Reddy, Superintendent, Cherlapalli Central Prison.
Later, Resourcepersons Pool of Seven CT Inmates was formed to conduct ‘Training of the Trainers’ (TOT) programme. The efforts to bring in positive change gained momentum after that. Prof. Beena says the success mantra was involving the prisoners at every level and instilling skills to ensure they gain employment once released to stay from crime.
