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J&K gets a new jail manual

The Jammu and Kashmir government Monday introduced a new jail manual in the troubled state.

It replaces the Punjab manual of 1930 on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

It was released by high court chief justice Dr B P Saraf, at a function at the high security conference centre in Srinagar.

State home secretary Phunsog and director general prisons S S Ali said that the new manual reveals a shift in government policy, transforming jails from "custodial to correctional" and from "retribution to reformation".

"Reforming a prisoner during his stay in jail up to his release will be the central piece of the new policy," Ali said.

Home secretary Phunsog, who was also chairman of the drafting committee of the new manual, said recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission as also the views of the ICRC have been taken into consideration while drafting the new manual.

He said jails in the state were being modernised and disclosed that each district in the state will have a jail so that there is no need to shift detenues for legal requirements.

Ali said there were only 1600 prisoners in various jails in the state. He said nearly half were militants, including over 100 foreign militants. Ali said that only 10 foreigners were lodged in jails outside the state.

He said that pre-release vocational training, prescribed under the new manual, has begun in Jammu and Srinagar jails. He said that the detenues were mostly interested in computer training while in custody.

Earlier, Phunsog, listing some features of the new manual, said education, recreation and such other facilities would be provided to help mitigate "adverse effects of imprisonment".

Provisions, he said, have been made for effective segregation of prisoners so as to ensure that first offenders are not mixed with hardened criminals and the young and women offenders are protected, recognising that a competent and humane prison staff, trained in the intricacies of correctional administration, is the sine-qua-non for making prison reforms fructify fully.

He said chapters have been provided on scientific classification of prisoners, education, vocational training, recreation, pre-release training and after-care and rehabilitation of prisoners.

Chapters on "work and discipline" make provisions for hard work and strict discipline, but avoid "barbarious and wasteful labour".

The underlying spirit, the state home commissioner said, was the "realisation that most prisoners are normal human beings" and that "they land in jail for succumbing to various temptations which may not re-occur''.

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