Reforming our prisons

Improvement of Pakistan’s prisons requires not only physical maintenance, but also focus on rehabilitation of inmates

In a report by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Human Rights Directorate, officials have recognised and acknowledged the inhumane conditions prevalent in the prisons of the province. This bodes well for improving Pakistan’s image of a country that lacks human rights. In a country where rights of law-abiding people are routinely trampled, it is too much to expect the preservation of rights of prison inmates. Prison inmates across the country, including children and pregnant women, are vulnerable to infections and diseases and lack basic facilities, such as beds. This is ubiquitous across prisons in Pakistan, including prisons in K-P as well as Karachi Central Jail, as protecting human rights has not been a top priority for governments. This has only been a priority for the few good-willed citizens of Pakistan working to improve prison conditions. Nonetheless, K-P authorities have realised that prisoners also deserve basic human rights.

Poorly planned systems, such as the fact that prisoners in the crowded Peshawar Central Jail have access to money and possibly other possessions on their person to purchase prison space, lead to unethical dealings within prisons. The overcrowding in prisons across the country has been a problem for decades. With the recent serious crackdowns on criminal and terrorist elements alike, and with prison space likely to become more constrained, this is a fitting time for the federal and provincial governments to consider expanding prisons, and perhaps building new ones.

The improvement of Pakistan’s prisons requires not only physical maintenance and expansion work, but also a focus on the rehabilitation of inmates. Services for adult literacy, helping inmates develop vocational and occupational skills, and the provision of psychiatric treatment must be provided so that when, one day, these convicts are released back into the world and again become members of free society, they may not repeat their ill deeds and may instead live a more positive life.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 10^th,  2015.

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