Prison overcrowding

March 14, 2013 02:37 am | Updated 02:37 am IST

The Tihar jail has roughly 12,000 inmates, double its sanctioned capacity. The very crime the man at the centre of the Delhi gang rape, Ram Singh, committed was indicative of his propensity to violence and a lack of mental balance. Criminals in such situations do tend to be suicidal. When unmanageable numbers of people are forcibly enclosed together, prisoner-on-prisoner violence is all too common, with staff failing to keep watch or even directly “disciplining” prisoners. Many view it as fitting informal punishment for despised criminals. Psychologists who have studied jail violence say that sex offenders often find themselves positioned on the lowest rungs of a hierarchy of inmates, which exposes them to particularly bad treatment from fellow prisoners. Criminal psychologists, however, point out that prison violence is a complex phenomenon, in principle influenced by several other factors such as overcrowding and opportunities for violence.

J.S. Acharya,

Hyderabad

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.