SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION TABLE ON CURRENT ISSUES IN PRISON MANAGEMENT

SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION TABLE ON CURRENT ISSUES IN PRISON MANAGEMENT on Demonstrative Learning a You Tube Channel of India Vision Foundation 

Key contributors were, Dr Jayadev Sarangi - Former DIG Tihar Prisons/ Officiating IG Tihar Prisons, Fomer IG Prisons Goa, Prison Expert- UNODC, Mr. Sunil Gupta - Former Law Officer Tihar Prisons, Mr. Jai Kishan Chhillar - Former SUPDT. Haryana Prisons, Ms. Rajni Sehgal - Former SUPDT. Jammu Prisons, Gautam Goradia , CEO COMSUR

Discussion moderated by Dr Kiran Bedi, Former, IGP Tihar Prisons

Here are the Quotes…

 • “The need for regular shifting of cells, prohibition of outside food and the charge of these should be with the Deputy Superintendent of Prison, as per the Model Prison Manual”

 • “Training of Prison officials is most important. There is also a need for Walkie Talkies, CCTV Cameras, Siren alarms and other security to manage these High-Risk Prisoners”

  * “In Higher Security wards fewer inmates should be kept because current crimes indicate that criminals are using prisons as a platform for crimes. There is a need for an SOP to deal with such crimes”

 • “most officials don’t’ abide by the laws in reality. Even 5% of the laws are not being implemented”

 • “When it comes to high security prisoners even prison officials are under threat or pressure”

 • “As Prison officials we need to ensure that only minimum basic needs of prisoners are taken care of and there is regular shifting of inmates between barracks. At the moment the prisons are overcrowded and understaffed and this is the reason compromises happen”

 • “From the technology point of view that there is a need for an SOP on CCTV Audit footage making it mandatory to audit on a daily basis several times. This will help in understanding emerging patterns of crime and also ensure safety of the prisons. Hence the need for trained CCTV auditors. COMSUR has the video auditing software and has offered to give and train gratis. 

 • “Prisons must have a disaster recovery mechanism in place so nothing is lost in case of a fire or any other calamity. We should not be swayed by fancy stuff like Artificial Intelligence. Instead, AI should stand for Augmented, Audited, Actionable reality.

 • “prison management is no child’s play. Running a prison is quite complex because issues of prisoners cannot be foreseen”

 • “The problems in running prisons include overcrowding, lack of staff, lack of information on high security prisoners and lack of separate enclosures for high-risk prisoners in old prisons made during British times”

 • “Prisoners tend to attempt crimes in shadow areas where CCTV footage is not picked up and it is almost impossible to manually audit footage 24x7. When issues are so complex we need train prison officials more. 

 • Good intelligentsia is the panacea for prison management. We need to recast prison management strategies, capacity building should be in tune with prison management. 

 • At present training is very prescriptive. We need supportive management strategies for a robust system of prison management.

Pre-emptive and crimes can be controlled. Let us not make prison officials victims.