The eruption of violent protests in Jalandhar Jail has laid bare yet again the abysmal conditions and poor security in our prisons. The jail’s 1,500 inmates began rioting on Monday morning when jail authorities apparently snipped the hair of a Sikh undertrial. The incident quickly snowballed, with prisoners raising demands for better living conditions and drawing attention to high-handedness of jail authorities. Less than a month ago, inmates of Patna’s Beur Central Jail went on a rampage for several hours to protest the suicide of a sick inmate and poor facilities in the jail. Inmates were in control of the jail for several hours. A couple of days earlier, around 300 prisoners — many of them Maoists — broke free from Dantewada Jail in Chhattisgarh. The incidents are an alarming pointer to breakdown in the security systems in the three prisons. Inmates are able to engage in violence because they are able to lay their hands on weapons, however rudimentary these might be. Inside support from authorities must be looked into.

At the root of the prison riots at Jalandar and Beur and the jailbreak from Dantewada lies the problem of overcrowding. Infrastructure in jails cannot support the large number of people being held there. Jalandhar jail, for instance, has the capacity to house 500 prisoners but it holds three times that number. It is not surprising then that prisoners are having to live in sub-human conditions. Overcrowding means that the strength of the jail staff to supervise and police the prison too is inadequate. Overcrowding of jails is a fallout of our excruciatingly slow judicial process. Most of those languishing in jails today should not be there in the first place. They are undertrials who are serving sentences far longer than their crimes merit.

There is a widely held misperception in this country that conditions in prisons should be poor. Many believe that since prisons are places of punishment they should be hellholes. It is not anybody’s argument that prisons should provide luxuries or even comforts. However, prisoners have rights too and these must be respected. Jails should provide a certain minimum level of cleanliness and sanitation. The aim of prisons should be to reform inmates, not to push them to live and behave like beasts. There is an urgent need to look into the problem of living conditions in jails.