Sexual
abuse(against male and female), violence, inhumane living conditions, drug abuse, parallel government operation, lack of proper medical assistance, substandard medical atmosphere, threat, intimidation, custody death could be found in one form or another in some countries of the world when it comes to prison life. To add salt to the wound lengthy and long trials make the life more difficult for under trial
prisoners. We seem to have lost the value of life. It also appears that prisoners have little or no rights in some prisons.
The prison
reform is much required in some of the countries. For
violation of a right of the prisoner inside a prison the sentence should be reduced appropriately. For any injury resulting from the negligence of the
administrators which includes prison fighting beyond the control of prison administrators should also result in reduction of the sentence of the affected
Prisoner. The prisoner subjected to psychological torture should also get reduction in sentence. If the sentence to be reduced is not more than the available sentence of a prisoner, he should get compensation. However, the reduction in sentence or allowing a better living condition to a prisoner should be consistent, quantifiable and measurable. Matters related to a prisoner''s right violation should be solved inside the
prison only if the prisoner voluntarily agrees to it. Fake prison fight for getting undue advantage should be properly investigated. Every instance of the violation of the rights of a prisoner should be notified to the nearest judicial court within 24 hours. Time required for reporting the matter to the nearest court should not exceed 24 hours, excluding situations beyond the control of prison administrators.
Juvenile prisoners should be given opportunity to improve the level of their education. Incentives for improving the literacy rate in prison to the prison administrators. Six monthly review of the literacy rate in prison.
Formation of new NGOs (not-for-profit organizations) for helping the kids of prisoners whose parents are serving.
The prison administration should follow the strict guide lines for any and every prisoner with no preferential treatment.
Under trial prisoners may have a different treatment as long as it is across the board.
How about cases involving virtual imprisonment? Virtual imprisonment can be defined as a prison without typical prison cells. In other words the government of one or many countries controls the life and life style of a prisoner which includes many of the torture techniques used during interrogation by the police. The life of an individual could be controlled by depriving him of proper accommodation (hotel accommodation or reasonably priced accommodations that are dependent on charity
), forcing a prisoner to sleep on footpath with beggars and homeless, denial of employment, denial of fair trial and subjecting him to several kinds of physical and psychological torture including but not limited to drug abuse, sex starvation, unlawful detention, threat, intimidation, assault, and lack of medical assistance.
It is only prudent that we start respecting the rights of prisoners. The rights of prisoners should be read to all the prisoners in a language they can understand before they start serving. The lawyers of the prisoners or prisoners who can reasonably understand the prison rights and rules should sign the document containing the rights of the prisoners and the way they should conduct themselves. To avoid abuse of power from the prison administrators, there should be an investigation body visiting the prison every three months. However, the investigators should talk to the prisoners in the absence of prison administrators about any complaints they might have against the prison administrators or living conditions of the prison. Fax, telephone, and postal mechanism should be deployed for the sake of prisoners using which, they camake a complaint. However, the mails should be taken only by the investigating agency and not by the regular postal service. While making a telephone call a password authorized by the court which must not be disclosed to the prison administrators should be used. Every prisoner gets 15 minutes of free time a week at his discretion to use a particular room directly connected to the investigating authority. The room should contain some new education or useful material delivered weekly. No surveillance in the room. However the room should be in the centre of a prison building and should be isolated, so that the prison cops can see the people entering the room.
Incentives to the prison administrators for maintaining the hygiene. Incentive to the prison administrators for helping the prisoners acquires employment skills.
More summaries about the Prison reform and virtual imprisonment