A major fallout of the overcrowding in prisons is that many undertrials who have no criminal background before entering the prison are turning into criminals once released, said experts, calling for the need to segregate prisoners.
According to Vijay Garg, President Council of Architecture, who was one of the keynote speakers at the two-day National Conference on Prison Design, prison officials are unable to segregate various kinds of criminals despite being supposed to do so, primarily due to lack of space.
“In such an instance, petty or small-time criminals or non-criminals are housed with hardened criminals. The undertrials are then gradually moulded into seasoned criminals by the latter,” Mr. Garg said.
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According to him, a change in prison design is a revolutionary idea and is the need of the hour given the situation.
Rewarding creativity
“Various aspects need to be addressed — right from recreational facilities (both indoor and outdoor), landscaping, training centres, building material and skill development centres,” he said.
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“Minute things such as colour scheming, creche facility for women prisoners who have small children, library and reading room, and facilities that will help explore the creative side of the prisoners will play a vital role in the new designs,” said Mr. Garg.
According to V.H. Deshmukh, Additional DGP, Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), sanitation, hygiene, food, clothing and medical facilities will also be incorporated in the designs for the new prison buildings.
Futuristic planning
The designs should be futuristic with provisions for geospatial tracking, he said.
“Newer indoor positioning system can locate objects or people inside a building using radio waves, magnetic fields or acoustic signals collected by mobile devices which can be integrated with GPS. Electronic monitoring with RFID system should be incorporated,” Mr. Deshmukh said.