What needs to be done to curb prison overcrowding

When jail cells built for one person must hold three or four or even five, everything suffers — from food to beds, medicine to sanitation: And of course the least remembered — human beings.

- Maja Daruwala

The line for a toilet starts before dawn, sleeping is in shifts, and the scramble for space can erupt into violence. Medical attention becomes a game of chance. Proximity breeds desperation — and exploitation. The strong prey on the weak. Sexual intimacy, wanted or not, is unavoidable. Rent-seeking for food, safety, or a phone call is backed by muscle, creating a subterranean economy of survival.

Recently, too, Maharashtra’s home minister acknowledged a national crisis too long ignored — overcrowded prisons. But Maharashtra is not even the worst of it. In state after state capital, central jails tell the story. Delhi's Tihar, built for 5,200, holds over 12,000 prisoners. Built for just about 1,000 inmates, Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai holds more than three times that number. Like Allahabad’s Naini prison, Patna’s Beur Central Jail holds twice the number of inmates than it should.

The India Justice Report records that 55% of India's prisons exceeded capacity, and 176 held up to four times what they should have in 2022. With a staggering 497% overcrowding, Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad district prison shows how extreme situations are easily tolerated.

The inhumanity is compounded by a thin, demotivated administration. Security staff run a national deficit of 30% to 40%. Care staff — doctors, counsellors, psychologists — are sometimes no more than a passing presence. Daily operations depend heavily on long-term convicts.

What is even more disconcerting is that two-thirds in these overcrowded barracoons are undertrials — not judged as guilty but locked up while the system decides when it will finish investigation or trial, or are simply there because they cannot put up bail. Legally, they remain under the judiciary’s care yet are allowed to face dangers they would never have had to endure outside.