Chapter-One
1.1 Introduction
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. A prison system is the organizational arrangement of the provision and operation of prisons. Imprisonment is a penalty which is given by the state for committing any crime. Prisons play a vital role in administration of criminal justice system by assisting the courts in the due execution of the sentences awarded by them. The word ‘Prison’ the synonym of the word ‘Jail’ or ‘Penitentiary’ that has been defined as place properly arranged and equipped for reception of persons who by legal process are committed to it for safe custody while awaiting trial or for punishment. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the government for the commission of a crime. Other terms used are penitentiary, correctional facility, remand centre, detention centre, and gaol or jail .The convicted or accused persons who are remained in prison are human being. So they have some rights which cannot be derogated. By ensuring the humane behavior the prisoner can be terminated to agood citizen. But prest condition are very unfavorable for the proper treatment of the prisoner. The prison administration system is relatively weak in Bangladesh. Prison is administered by the state and is used to house convicted criminals for periods of much longer duration. Prison is a part of a larger penal system which includes other aspects of criminal justice such as courts, law enforcement, and crime labs.
The administration and management of the prisons in Bangladesh is carried out according to the rules and Acts as enumerated in volumes 1 and 2 of the Jail Code, formulated by colonial rulers during the 19th century. These colonial rules and Acts include the Prisons Act IX of 1894, as amended, relating to the management and training of prisoners; the Civil Procedure Code relating to the management of civil prisoners; and Act XLV of 1860, as amended, of the Penal Code.
1.2 Shadow of the Thesis:
Chapter one contains introductory paragraph, problem, background, objective, importance and methodology of the research. Chapter Two contains the historical background of the thesis. Chapter three contains classification of prisons and prisoners. Chapter four contains objectives of imprisonment, Chapter five contains the prevailing prison system in different countries, Chapter six discuss about the open prison system, Chapter seven discuss about prisoner’s rights and its implementation, Chapter eight discuss about national statues and international instrument regarding prison, Chapter nine discuss about the prison administration of Bangladesh, Chapter ten discuss about the existing problems in prison Administration. Chapter eleven discuss about recommendations and conclusion.
1.3 Problem of the study:
The study mainly covers a brief on Reform Proposal for Prison Administration in Bangladesh. Here we have faced the following limitations:
Mainly, Unavailability of data.
Incompatibility of collected data from different sources.
Lack of organized tools to analyze.
Lack of time for interviewing with prisons officials.
1.4 Purpose of the study:
The main purpose of writing this report is “Reform Proposal for Prison Administration in Bangladesh”. To make the prison employee more professional, efficient, network that embodies integrity and transparency. Bring out the awareness regarding non-discrimination and respect for differences, accepting prisoners as equals regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, political, or religious affiliation. Find out problems regarding present prison system and its solution.
1.5 Significance of this Study:
This study is important because from this report readers will know about the prisons, prisoners and their officers and staffs and their performance. They will know how prison officers and staffs can develop their performance. And how the prisons can train their employees to perform well. By this report Government would be able to evaluate the officers and staffs performance. Assess the employee’s strengths and weaknesses. Do this by using a narrative form, a checklist, peer and self evaluations, or by using ranking charts. The employee needs to understand why you have come to your conclusions so he is able to correct any problems. Finally it can help to adopt good prison system.
1.6 Background of the study
The thesis report t has to be completed by every LLB student to complete the LLB program. For thesis Northern University Bangladesh provides opportunities for students to gain experience in their field, determine if they have an interest in a particular career, create a network of contacts, or gain school credit. During this period the student is supposed to use the things he/she has learned in school and put it in practice. This way the student gets work experience in their field of study. The gained experience will be helpful to finish up the last year of the study.
1.7 Objective of the Study
The objectives of this study are:
To know about the prison
To know about the prison Administration
To know about Historical Background of the prison
To know about the present condition of the prison Administration
To know about existing Prison system in different countries
To know about prisoners rights and its implementation
To know about the existing problem relating prison
To know about the reform proposal for Prison Administration
1.8 Methodology
The sample frame of this study has considered employees of prisons of Bangladesh and all prisoners.. The population has defined as employees of prison and the prison inmates and Ministry of Home Affairs who are related to prison.For conducting this research the Kasimpur-2 Jail was considered.
Primary Source:
I have collected information by conducting a interview. I asked him different types of questions about their activities and their performance and the present condition of Kashimpur -2 Jail. And I got some important information to prepare this report.
Secondary Source:
Books
Journals
Law Report
Newspaper
Annual Report of ASK,BLAST,ADHIKAR.
Internet
Analysis of Data
I have used Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word to analyze the data. To entry data, coding option has used at the initial stage. The measure of dispersion, correlation co-efficient, index. number are applied. In addition, basic statistical of different measures of central tendency has used in analyzing the data
Chapter-Two
Origin and Historical Development of Prison System:
2.1 Origin
A prison (from old French prisoun), also known as gaol or jail, is a place in which people are physically confined and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms. The first occasion on which we read of a prison is in the history of Joseph in Egypt. Then Potiphar, “Joseph’s master, took him, and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were bound”. The Heb. word here used (sohar) means properly a round tower or fortress. It seems to have been a part of Potiphar’s house, a place in which state prisoners were kept. The Mosaic law made no provision for imprisonment as a punishment. In the wilderness two persons were “put in ward”, but it was only till the mind of God concerning them should be ascertained. Prisons and prisoners are mentioned in the book of Psalms. Samson was confined in a Philistine prison. In the subsequent history of Israel frequent references are made to prisons. Prisons seem to have been common in New Testament times. The apostles were put into the “common prison” at the instance of the Jewish council and at Philippi Paul and Silas were thrust into the “inner prison”.
The organized and modern concept of prison in the Indian subcontinent has been contribution of the British Government. Throughout the Muslim period, there was no regular prisons. Only old forts and castles were used as prisions.Until the late 18th century, prisons were used mainly for the confinement of debtors who could not meet their obligations.
2.2 Historical Development of Prison System
2.2.1 Prison system in sixteen and Seventeenth century:
Prison tended to be a place where people were held before their trial or while awaiting punishment .Sanctions for criminal behavior tended to be public events which were designed to shame the person and deter others; these included the ducking stool, the pillory ,whipping, branding and the stocks. At the time the sentence for many other offences was death..it was very rarely used as a punishment in its own right . Men and women,boys and girls,debtors and murderers were all held together in local prisons.Evidence suggests that the prisons of this period were badly maintained and often controlled by negligent prison wardens. Many people died of diseases like gaol fever, which was a form of typus. “There was no separate arrangement for men and women” The most important innovation of this period was then building of the petotype type house of correction,the London Bridewell.By the end of the 17th century they were absorbed into the prison system under the control of the local Justice of the peach.
2.2.2 Prison in Eighteenth Century
Although the 18th century has been characterised as the era of the ‘Bloody Code’ there was growing opposition to the death penalty for all but the most serious crimes. Such severe punishment was counter-productive, as jurors were refusing to find thieves guilty of offences which would lead to their execution. Transportation was curtailed at the end of the 18th century. Other sanctions therefore had to be found. The two prominent alternatives were hard labour, and for those unable to do this, the house of correction. This practice lead to the use of prison hulks from 1776 until their phasing out in 1857 . Prison hulks were ships which were anchored in the Thames, and at Portsmouth and Plymouth. Those sent to them were employed in hard labour during the day and then loaded, in chains, onto the ship at night. The appalling conditions on the hulks, especially the lack of control and poor physical conditions, eventually led to the end of this practice. But the use of prison hulks did much to persuade public opinion that incarceration, with hard labour, was a viable penalty for crime .
2.2.3 Prison in Nineteenth Century
Some remarkable changes were further made in the prison administration in the later half of the 19th century. The first half of the 19th century represented a watershed in the history of state punishment. Capital punishment was now regarded as an inappropriate sanction for many crimes. The shaming sanctions, like the stocks, were regarded as outdated. By mid-century, imprisonment had replaced capital punishment for most serious offences – except for that of murder. Pentonville was originally designed to hold 520 prisoners, each held in a cell measuring 13 feet long, 7 feet wide and 9 feet high. Pentonville operated the separate system, which was basically solitary confinement. In the next 6 years, 54 new prisons were built using this template “In order to ease the pressure on British prisons, prisoners were released on ‘Ticket on Leave’ on condition that they would not resort to criminality” In 1877 prisons were brought under the control of the Prison Commission. For the first time even local prisons were controlled centrally.In 1894,Gladstone committee recommended the abolition of unproductive labour in prison” . The Prison Act 1898 reasserted reformation as the main role of prison regimes. This Act can be seen to set the penal-welfare context which underlies today’s prison policy. It led to a dilution of the separate system, the abolition of hard labour, and established the idea that prison labour should be productive, not least for the prisoners, who should be able to earn their livelihood on release.
2.2.4 Prison in Twenty Century
In the first half of the twenty century, some significant steps were taken in the prison system. The concept of cruel and degrading treatment and punishment were decreased as a remarkable number. The humanitarian conduct to prisoners was upheld. The development of the prison system continues. According to the recommendation of the Gladstone committee the borstal system was introduced in the Prevention of Crime Act 1908 . Borstal training involved a regime based on hard physical work, technical and educational instruction and a strong moral atmosphere. A young person in borstal would work through a series of grades, based on privileges, until release. In 1933, the first open prison was built at New Hall Camp near Wakefield. The theory behind the open prison is summed up in the words of one penal reformer, Sir Alex Paterson: “You cannot train a man for freedom under conditions of captivity”. “Sir Lionel Fox advocated setting up of open prisons and as a result of his pertinent efforts, the number of such open institutions was raised from one in 1942 to thirteen” The Criminal Justice Act 1948 abolished penal servitude, hard labour and flogging. It also presented a comprehensive system for the punishment and treatment of offenders. Prison was still at the centre of the system, but the institutions took many different forms including remand centers, detention centers and borstal institutions.
2.2.5 Prison in Twenty-First Century
The prison system of this time in the world is in a slandered form. The International rules are adopted by the countries for the humanitarian punishment for prisoners and every country has enacted their national statues in this regards. Although it is not possible to change their previous rules at a time. But the taken steps by the individual states for reformation of prison system are remarkable. There are currently 139 prisons holding men, women and children in England and Wales. The supremacy of imprisonment as a way of dealing with offending behavior shows no signs of abating. Further new prisons are being planned. These like all new prisons will be part of the PFI programmes and managed by the private sector. There are currently 11 privately managed prisons; however two prisons which began life managed by the private sector have been brought back into public management. The Declaration of Independence cited a list of abuses related to the prisoner trade, including complaints that the Crown had obstructed justice, sent swarms of officers to harass the people, deprived many of the benefits of trial by jury, transported persons beyond the seas for pretended offenses, and committed other offenses. However, Thomas Jefferson’s clause protesting slavery was deleted. The new United States struggled to determine what to do with its penal and slavery apparatus. Many British prisons were converted to American ones and new penal codes were implemented. Some states such as Pennsylvania and New York provided for the gradual emancipation of their slaves at the same time they adopted new criminal codes providing for the use of sentences of imprisonment as a punishment.
The Civil War had profoundly altered America’s system and rationale for imprisonment. Millions of slaves had been let loose, chattel slavery was ended, and penal servitude expanded. Thousands of inmates had perished in deadly prison camps kept by their own countrymen. Many more were badly scarred by what they had experienced. Many Americans increasingly recognized that the previous reformed. The prison camps of the Civil War proved to be incredibly lethal. According to official statistics compiled at the end of the war, the North held a total of 220,000 Confederates and the South held 126,000 Unionists Estimates placed the number of prison dead at 30,212 for the Confederate prisons and 26,774 in the Union prisons . To put matters in perspective, roughly two and a half times. Until 1963, the incidence of reported crime as measured by official crime statistics actually remained relatively constant. But then serious crime began to experience an upsurge. The nation’s rate of incarceration also remained relatively stable until 1974, when it also began to shoot up. The total number of adults in prison custody on a census day in 1972 showed a rate of incarceration.
Jails, in the modern sense, are products of the last century. It is a legacy of British rule. E C wines observe that, the prison system in India Empire, like the British rule itself in that country , has grown up by degrees, until, as there empire was consolidated and order introduced into all department of the Government , the treatment of criminal took its place among the recognized branches of the judicial administration . H S stretchy made a survey of jail accommodation throughout the territories of the East India Company in 1805. Before 1835 there were 43 civil, 75 criminal and 68 mixed jails in the territories under the company
Lord McCauley commission report, 1836, public attention was not strongly drown to prisons. The number of Thomas Richardson, the Magistrate of 24 pagans and the superintendent of the jail, at the presidency of Calcutta, was the moving case of public attention to the jail problem. About this incident, E C wines wrote, “the murder of the Governor of the most important person of India was the immediate moving cause of the broad and exhaustive enquire which was at once set on foot . The evidence collected shows that prison discipline had at that time only reached the stage of development in which considerable attention was given to the physical condition of the inmates of the prisons. This report was prepared by Lord McCauley, than law member of supreme council of India. In this report Lord McCauley expressed the idea that the best criminal code can be of very little use to a community unless there be good machinery for the infliction of punishment.
2.3 Prison in Sub-continent
2.3.1 The prison discipline committee, 1836
Lord William Bentick appointed the second committee on January 2, 1836.The Prison enquiry committee appointed by the Government of Indiain 1836 recommended for the abolition of the practice of prisoners working on roads. Under the chairmanship of H Shakespeare, a member of Governor General’s council. This committee is known as the prison discipline committee. They submitted a report in 1838 to Lord Auckland. The major observation were :
- The rampant corruption in the establishment
- Laxity of discipline
- The system of employing prisoners on extra moral labor. The committee recommended increased rigorous treatments and rejected all notions of reforming criminals through moral and religions teaching , education or any system of rewards for good conduct. First inspector general of prisons was appointed in India in 1844, for the north west province
2.3.2 The 2nd Jail Enquiry Committee &Commission of jail management and discipline (1862-1864):
A second committee was appointed in 1864 re reconsider the whole question addressed by the first committee. Sir Jhon Lawrence’s examination of the condition of the jails in India lades Lord Dalhousie to appoint this commission of jail management discipline. This commission made specific recommendation regarding the accommodation, improvement diet , clothing , bedding, medical care of the prisoner s and the appointment of medical officers in jails .
2.3.3 The 3rd Jail Enquiry Committee and Calcutta Conference:
A conference of experts was convened in 1877 al Calcutta in inquire into prison administration. The remedy proposed by the conference of 1877 was the enactment of a new prison law , which could secure uniformity of system at least on such basic issues as the reckoning of the terms of sentence .Thereafter, certain recommendations were also made by the 3rd bjail enquiry committee in 1877 followed by further suggestions in 1889 and 1892.
2.3.4 The 4th jail commission 1888:
In 1888, the 4th jail commission was appointed by Lord Duferin to inquire into the facts of prison. This commission reviewed the earlier reports (Reports of 1836, 1864 and 1877) and made an exhaustive inquiry into all matters connected with jail administration
2.3.5 The Acts 1894 based on the 1888:
Jail commission’s report, a consolidated prison bill was prepared. This bill was later passed. Thus came into the prison s Act, 1894 which is the existing law governing the management and administration of prisons in Indian subcontinent.The Penal policy as reflected through the act continued to be far from reformative and contemporary.The English thinking of deterrence was the basis of the Act
2.3.6 The India jail committee 1919-20:
The Indian Jails reform Committee which was appointed to suggest measures for prison reforms was headed by Sir Alexender Cardew.The problems of prison management and administration continued. The Indian jail committee 1919-20 made the 1st comprehensible study of this problems in the 20th century. This committee report was treated as a turning point of the prison reforms the the country . for the 1st time in the history of prisons , “ reformation” and “rehabilitation” of offenders were identified as the objectives of prison administration . It recommended utilization of prison inmates in productive work so as to bring about their reformation. It also emphasized the need for after-care programme for the released prisoners for their rehabilitation
2.4 Pakistan period :
In the year of 1956 than Government of Pakistan formed a reformed committee headed by Deputy Commissioner S.Rahmatullah. The committee made a large number of recommendations. Classifying prisoners into different categories, reconstructing the service system of jail authority, improving the living standard of inmates etc.were the administrative reform proposed . moreover commission suggested for the introduction of parole and probation services and establishment of training institute for the prison personnel.
2.5 Bangladesh Period:
Prisons are managed under the Prison Act of 1894, its accompanying Rules, and a range of internally issued circulars, notices and orders which together form the Jail Code of 1920. Prisons were earlier treated as punitive centers of confinement and they have remained as such in Bangladesh. Little effort has been made by governments to change these into rehabilitative and correctional institutions. Human rights of the prisoners, unfortunately, have never been a serious concern for the public either. Human rights and legal aid organizations have drawn attention to conditions in prisons which amount to inhuman and degrading treatment and can be a source of violation of a person’s right to life and personal integrity. They have also pointed out that prisons as they currently operate offer little scope for correction and reintegration into society.
The laws governing prisons, in Bangladesh namely, the Prison Act of 1894, its accompanying Rules, and a range of internally issued circulars, notices and orders which together form the Jail Code of 1920, the Penal Code 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898, the Lunacy Act 1974 and the Children’s Act 1974 directly contravene the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) or the Standard Minimum Rules.