Speaking to Deccan Herald, K Srinivasan, Additional Director General of Police (Prison) said letters have already been sent to the Deputy Commissioners of Gulbarga and Belgaum to notify 100 acers of land for each jail.
Currently, the State’s only open air jail is situated in Koramangala village of Devanahalli taluk, which was established in 1972. It has 113.3 acers of land and the sanctioned accommodation is 80.
Presently, the open air jail has a total of 28 inmates.
“Since its inception, not a single inmate has tried to escape from the open air jail. In fact, in other states, such incidents have happened. Most importantly, we select only well-behaved long term prisoners for open air jail. Looking at the success of the first open air jail, we are now going to set up two new jails. For such jails, we choose huge patch of land which is suitable for cultivation, so that training can be imparted to the inmates in agriculture and horticulture,” Srinivasan said.
The strength of the upcoming open air jails would be somewhere between 80 and 100 inmates. Besides, such jails can run with a minimum guarding staff. Stressing on the importance of having more number of open air jails, Srinivasan added: “We should get out of the colonial hang over of using traditional prisons being places of punishment. We cannot rectify somebody by force. Rather, such open air jails would make our job easier to rectify them.”
