Of the 477 death convicts lodged in various jails in the country in 2011, there were 465 men and 12 women. No executions were carried out at any prison.
Figures released earlier this month by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show that Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 174 such prisoners. Karnataka follows with 61 and Maharashtra next with 50 prisoners. Delhi housed 24 condemned prisoners.
In six States there were no condemned prisoners during the period. They are Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Uttarakhand. Apart from Delhi, only three among the remaining six Union Territories (UTs) have jails but none have condemned prisoners.
Life convicts
As on December 31 last, jails in the country had 68, 935 prisoners who were sentenced to life. They comprise 66,199 men and 2,736 women. Uttar Pradesh again led this category with 14,014 convicts, including 416 women, followed by Maharashtra with 10,503 convicts, including 294 women. Delhi had 1,343 such prisoners, 61 among them being women.
Though Lakshadweep with four sub-jails has neither death convicts nor anyone serving life sentence, it topped the list for overcrowding with the figure standing at 500 per cent of capacity. With only a capacity to lodge 16 prisoners, Lakshadweep had 80 prisoners.
Want of space
While the 1,382 jails in the country together had a capacity to accommodate 3,33,782 prisoners, the inmate population, as on December 31 last, was 3,72,296. This included 3,56,902 men and 16,024 women. The occupancy rate stood at 112.1 per cent.
Among them are 1,28,593 convicts, including 4,959 women, and 2,41,200 under-trials, including 10, 934 women. The inmates also comprise 2,020 convicts, including 162 women, and 3,601 under-trials, including 371 women who are foreigners.
Uttar Pradesh once again tops the list by having the highest prison inmate population. The 64 jails in that State together had 82,383 inmates during last year. They include 3,139 women, which is also the highest in the country. Madhya Pradesh with 123 jails followed with 32,916 inmates. Maharashtra, which has the highest number of jails in the country (215), is in the fourth place with 24,082 prisoners. Bihar is in the third position with 28,032 prisoners.
A total of 1,729 children were lodged in various prisons of the country along with their mothers. They comprise 440 children whose mothers were serving prison terms as convicts (383) and 1,289 children whose mothers are in jails as under-trials (1,177).
As many as 1,332 inmates died during 2011 and they include 43 women — 1,244 of these deaths were natural. With 15 deaths, the highest number of unnatural deaths was reported from Tamil Nadu. Thirteen of these deaths were suicides; one was killed by another inmate and one died of other causes.
A total of 154 prisoners escaped from various jails. The NCRB explains that the occupancy in jails change on a daily basis due to the addition of new prisoners and release of old ones. At the same time, an estimate of occupancy at the end of the year serves as a good indicator to determine the occupancy rate.
