Abstract

Imprisonment takes away a person’s freedom and liberty but at times removing the accused from the society becomes a necessity for the welfare of society itself and that of the prisoner too. But many a times, such imprisonment have been proven to defeat the main objective of imprisonment as innocent prisoners associate with the hardened criminals and engage further in the illicit and illegal activities. There are different types of prisons for different classes of prisoners which has proven to be beneficial but the occupancy rate in India is presently 130% which causes problems as many prisons are overcrowded and in turn this leads to issues like poor sanitation, hygiene, accommodation etc. The prison system in India has developed through various time periods in various ways which led to the present prison system prevailing in our country, although the present prison system can be said to be as a remnant of the british period’s prison system. However, presently, prisoners have also been conferred with several rights from many acts like the Indian Penal Code,1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and also from the Constitution of India and various other acts. A vast portion of Indian Budget is allocated to the prison expenditure wherein 77% of prisoners are awaiting trial. This is the reason why several committees were established by the government of India to give suggestions and recommendations for the reduction of undertrial prisoners thus solving the issue of overpopulation in the prisons. These committees were also responsible for several prison reforms in India. However, imprisonment have many effects, and not just on the prisoner but on the society as well. The prisoner is obviously affected socially, psychologically, and economically but the society also gets affected, and not always in a good way as imprisonment does not always fulfil its objective of prevention of crime and rehabilitation of criminals.

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