Jail overcrowding down to 37%

Punjab’s prisons had 146% more inmates than capacity in 2010, LHC informed

LAHORE:

Overcrowding of prisoners in the jails of Punjab has dropped to 37 per cent from 146% during the past decade.

This was revealed in a report submitted to Lahore High Court (LHC) on behalf of the inspector general of prisons in response to a petition seeking directions to treat the prisoners in accordance with the Jail Manual. The petitioner had also called for shifting patients suffering from mental disorders to hospitals and drug addicts to rehabilitation centres.

Requesting the court to dispose of the petition, the report said the prisons department would leave no stone unturned to safeguard the rights of the prisoners in line with the international standards and best practices.

It maintained that there were 52,803 prisoners in 32 jails of the province in 2010 against the authorised capacity of 21,527, depicting an overcrowding of 146%.

Since then, the department has increased the number of prisons in the province to 43. They include nine central jails, a high security prison in Sahiwal, 27 district jails, two borstal jails, two sub jails and a women’s prison.

The number of prisoners is 50,578, while the capacity of the prisons is 36,806.

The report revealed that 21,797 prisoners were deployed in various industries during 2015-16 to 2019-20 with the total expenditure of over Rs402.94 million. The income from the industries was Rs523.81 million and 35% profit earned from the sale of articles was deposited in the government treasury.

Since 2016, as many as 16,777 prisoners have attended various courses offered by the Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority, of whom 12,882 appeared in the exams and 12,139 passed.

The report stated that steps had also been taken for protecting the rights of the women, child and transgender inmates.

There are 858 female prisoners in Punjab’s jails. A separate jail for female prisoners is functioning in Multan, while in other jails a portion is set apart for keeping women inmates. After conviction, the prisoners are shifted to the Women’s Jail Multan, Central jail Sahiwal, Central Jail Lahore and others where they are given technical training in different trades.

At present, 540 juvenile prisoners are confined in the jails. In all jails in Punjab, juvenile under-trial prisoners are segregated from adults and confined in a separate portion. After conviction, they are shifted to the Borstal Institution and Juvenile Jails in Bahawalpur and Faisalabad, where they are trained in various trades.

The prison authorities have updated the health profiles of the drug addicts in the prison management information system in coordination with the provincial health department.

After recruitment by the provincial government through Punjab Public Service Commission exams, 17 psychologists (BPS-17) and 19 junior psychologists (BPS-16) are serving in the jails. At least 27 prisoners identified for treatment from the Punjab Institute of Mental Health are regularly examined and treated by psychiatrists and psychologists, the report disclosed.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2021.