'If prisoners are subjected to human rights violations, don't expect to get them rehabilitated'

He was first arrested from Nagpur on May 8, 2007 under the Unlawful Activities and Prevention Act for his alleged links with Maoists. He was slapped, kicked and made to stretch behind bars. Arun Ferriera, who spent almost five years in jail pleading his innocence before walking free, speaks about his fight with the system, and the horrific conditions of life in prison:

The government says prisons are to be known as correctional homes and not penitentiaries. And here lies the fundamental contradiction of our prison administration. While the government is only keen on changing names, there is no change in essence. There is an approach to get more and more persons in prison and maximize prison security, but there is little interest in humanely treating prisoners so as to get them back into society. If prisoners are incarcerated in conditions of human rights violations, we cannot expect to get them rehabilitated. Prison reform is true reform only if seen in this perspective.

I particularly remember an argument with a prison official. The water pump in our prison yard had a burnt coil and we could not draw water from the well. Weeks had past but repairs were waiting to be done. We had to do with less than a bucket of water each day. A hunger strike by all of us in the barrack ultimately forced their hands. I had argued with the jailor that if my cell gate was broken instead, it would have been repaired within a few hours, but for a water pump why do we have to wait for weeks? This characteristically manifests the security centric perspective of prison reform in existence.

Prison reform for one, should strive to decrease overcrowding. This cannot be done in isolation. It would mean really implementing the 'bail is the rule, jail is the exception' principle. Prison reform should encompass implementation of provisions such as probation of offenders and granting lenient remissions to convicts. These are measures which are legally in existence but sparingly practiced. Another necessity for the right perspective of prison reform is the need to dissociate it from its present administrative authority of the home department. The home department of the government largely deals with policing and this penal approach dominates even prison administration. Lastly, I think there is a need to make prison administration more transparent. Most cases of human rights violations and corruption are never noticed because of the high walls. Watchdog mechanisms like the Human Rights Commissions lack the teeth to combat such evils in prisons.