The Changing Paradigm of Correctional Mechanism in India: A Critical Analysis

Criminal justice System is a system comprising of police, judiciary, prison authorities and social welfare agencies focussing on the elimination of criminality with various correctional mechanisms. Imprisonment was considered as the primary solution to deal with criminals. However, captivation in the four walls of prisons led to further problems in prisons ranging from overcrowding, lack of health safety measures, lack of proper accommodation, lack of schemes for rehabilitation and reformation. Apart from this, it also posed the challenge of psychological and sociological deconstruct from the society. Hence, a major challenge today is exploring other terrains of correctional mechanism when incarceration no longer serves as a major anchor to corrective justice. The present paper delves into the evolving need of innovative correctional reforms in the form of non-custodial sanctions, non-institutional methods to address criminality. It delves into focussing on thereaupatic jurisprudence and restorative justice. To eliminate criminality and not the criminal from the society. The paper further focuses on the growing wave of new alternatives to imprisonment such as Open-Air Prisons, community services and modernization of prisons. It focuses on means and methods adopted by open air prisons, community services and other prison programs in inculcating vocational training, skills, meditation and yoga as a means to rehabilitate the offender. Conclusively, the paper delves into suggestive correctional reforms, which can be incorporated to shift towards more humane practice and emphasising on the need of treating the criminality in the prisoners rather than isolating and excluding them from the society.