State prisons : Haven for criminals : Concrete jungle
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 07, 2012 -

It is obvious that to the State Government, a jail is just a concrete structure, with high rise walls-a fortified place to house criminals of all hues and colours- refusing to see it out of the box.

Manipur has two primary prisons, the Sajiwa Jail and the Imphal Central Jail and while jails are primarily set up to keep criminals or anti-social elements under confinement, as they are deemed to pose a danger to the society as a whole, the world, India included, has seen a series of movements and Government appointed Committees to look beyond the obvious and take up steps so that the understanding of jails go beyond the place where criminals are lodged or confined as some sort of a punishment for breaking the law.

This is why terms like Prison Reforms, Jail Administration or Jail Manuals have entered the lexicon of the Government and law makers down the years. India too has seen quite a number of Committees being appointed to streamline the functioning of Jails and take it beyond the mere understanding of a concrete structure.

And this is the reason why jails are increasingly seen as some sort of a correctional home for prisoners, so that they can be in a position to merge into the social set up once they are released or have completed their jail terms.

This is also the reason why there is some sort of a classification amongst prisoners ranging from the hard core criminals, awaiting 'Judgement Day' and the political prisoners, and in India's context no one perhaps fits the bill of the term political prisoner more than the Father of the Nation himself, who had to spend his time in jail numerous times during the freedom movement in the British Raj era.

Such is the primacy given to jail administration that the Government of India constituted a high powered committee to draft a National policy paper on Prison Reforms and Correctional Administration on December 1, 2005. Many such committees have pre-dated the Committee of 2005 and the interesting point to note here is the inclusion of the words, 'Correctional Administration.'

Manipur has had an officer of the rank of a DGP to look after jail administration. At the moment, there is an officer of the rank of an IGP to look after this job. On paper this looks good, but a closer look at the ground reality tells a different story.

Significantly in almost all the recommendations made by different committees set up by the Government to look into the affairs of jail administration, the need to use trained personnel has always been stressed.

That this has not at all registered or shaken the State Government is there for all to see if one takes into account the report that VDF and Home Guard personnel have been requisitioned to back up the jail staff.

The result is there for all to see and bear. Manipur must be one of the few places in the country where raids are thought necessary to be conducted inside jails and this has happened on quite a few occasion.

And each raid has led to the exposure of many skeletons. Criminals operating from inside the jail through mobile phones is not something unheard of here. The modus operandi is simple.

Such is the condition under which the two primary jails in Manipur function that it is not a tough call for some ingenious criminals to get hold of a mobile phone or two inside the jail, get into contact with their men outside and then issue instructions on what to do.

This entails an unholy nexus. The State Government should get its act together and cleanse the rot. For too long Sajiwa Jail has been used as a safe haven by too many criminals, literally turning it into a concrete jungle where the law does not apply.