The Home (Prisoners and Fire Service) Department has issued a GO on Wednesday for setting up of a Borstal School, as per Rule 10-A of the A.P. Borstal School Act, 1925, at Vizianagaram.
Government has already notified about 25 acres at Kondavelagada in Nellimarla mandal in Vizianagaram district for construction of a new District Jail and the Borstal School will be set-up along with it.
Currently Andhra Pradesh does not have a Borstal School. There were two schools at Visakhapatnam and Anantapur, but they were closed down in 1998 and 2000 respectively, for various reasons.
Subsequently, a school was started in Nizamabad in the combined AP, but post bifurcation it was allotted to Telangana.
According to Indla Srinivas, Jail Superintendent of Visakhapatnam Central Jail, Borstal School is meant to confine the prisoners or convicts who are in the age group of 18-21 years. At times it even caters to Juveniles in Conflict with Law in the age group of 16 to 21 years. “The starting of a new Borstal School had been on the cards since long and now it has been finally sanctioned,” he said.
The government has also sanctioned Rs. 25 crore and has instructed the Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services, A.P. to take up the work. The school is being developed to house at least 100 inmates at a time.
According to Mr. Ramakrishna, legal advisor to the Police Commissionerate, Borstal Schools are not like the normal jails. “They are proper residential complexes with facilities to train the convicts. Various life and employability skills and trades are imparted to reform the young minds, so that they become good citizens and take up some kind of employment after the jail term,” he said.
According to DCP (Crimes) Visakhapatnam, T. Ravi Kumar Murthy, many youth in the age group between 16 and 22 years are resorting to various forms of crimes such as robbery, snatching housebreaking and even rapes and murder. Those below 18 years are treated as juveniles and are being sent to juvenile homes for correction. As per the City Crime Record Bureau (CCRB) –the crime committed by this age group in the 2014 was 33 and 43 were nabbed and in 2015, so far, it is 47 and 32.
