The Tamil Nadu Prison Department has bagged the first place in the India Justice Report (IJR) 2022 survey, held on the basis of various parameters such as infrastructure, crowding and correctional efforts.
Tamil Nadu scored 6.4 on the 10-point scale. Karnataka followed with 6.01 and Telangana scored 5.35. Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh were at the bottom with scores of 2.05 and 3.55 respectively.
Tamil Nadu had secured the tenth place in the survey in 2019 and rose to the sixth spot in 2020. The IJR survey is a comprehensive quantitative index that uses the government’s statistics to rank the capacity of the formal justice system operating in various States. It is a collaborative effort undertaken in partnership with DAKSH, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Common Cause, Centre for Social Justice, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and TISS-Prayas.
One of the important aspects of the assessment was overcrowding in prisons. During the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Supreme Court directed States/Union Territories to set up special high-powered committees to recommend the release of various categories of prisoners on interim bail and parole to decongest the prisons. Between April and June 2020, the overall prison occupancy rate in 20 States and two Union Territories reduced to 93.3%.
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The IJR referred to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which classified 120% of overcrowding in prisons as ‘critical’ and 150% as ‘extreme’. At the end of 2021, the average occupancy rates in thirteen States/Union Territories were critical and in six States, extreme.
Tamil Nadu was among the 17 States with less than 100% occupancy and its share in the number of jails in States/Union Territories with 100% or more occupancy in 2022 was the lowest at 11%. In terms of staff vacancies, the State had the lowest, at 9.8%, while Jharkhand topped the list with 60%. Tamil Nadu was the only major State that utilised the entire sanctioned Budget for prisons.
In the calculation of inmates per officer and inmates per correctional staff, Tamil Nadu had the lowest figures in the country with 21 and 198 respectively. Except for Tamil Nadu and Chandigarh, no other State/Union Territory met the benchmark of “one correctional officer for 200 inmates”. The highest workload was reported by Jharkhand, which had one correctional officer for 21,257 inmates.
The State was also well placed in the availability of facilities including vocational training, healthcare, and video-conferencing for inmates.
“It is heartening to know that the Tamil Nadu Prison Department has been ranked as No.1 in the all-India ranking of prisons. We are taking several measures to reform, rehabilitate and re-socialise the inmates. Renovation of prison libraries, the introduction of audiobooks, free education, enhanced interviewing facility with family members, and introduction of sports and music as therapeutic interventions are among the steps taken by us,” Amaraesh Pujari, Director-General of Police, Prisons & Correctional Services, said.
‘Changing prisons’
He said the aim was to change the prison from a largely punitive institution to a reformatory one by transforming them into correctional colleges. The IJR sourced data from various government agencies, including the Prison Statistics of India, the National Crime Records Bureau, the Combined Finance and Revenue Accounts of the Union and State Governments in India, and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, among others.
