“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” -Nelson Mandela
July 18 is observed as the Mandela Day every year to acknowledge the work for peace of the great leader who was able to set aside the rancor and resentment of decades and move ahead with truth and reconciliation. All of us do agree with the ideas of world peace, good will, human dignity and equality but have we ever tested our ideals against real life situations? Let’s take a test. Can you name a place where most awful of the rights abuses are part and parcel of the everyday life? A place that has got such a notoriety that if anyone ever comes to know about its brutal practices, prefers to call it karma and walks away? Let me give you another hint. The gruesome stories about the life in that hell fail to move anyone as it is sincerely believed that the souls trapped inside that inferno deserve it. That place is called a prison. Now think for a while. How many of us have ever given a thought to life inside those four walls when almost daily we either read something about people being sent there or released from that place or walk or drive past that place in our cities.
If we speak of the life inside that place, anyone any bit familiar with it would remark that it is infested with so many problems that at least few years planning is required to bring some modicum of improvement. But here, just one issue is being highlighted, which can be resolved with enough political determination, judicial oversight and public demand and in much lesser time. Leaving out the convicts from the discussion for a while, how many of us have thought of locking up large numbers of under-trial persons for indefinite periods of time? These inmates-without a conviction and a convincing reason for their incarceration-are caged up only as a matter of procedure, something terribly apathetic and hugely insensitive. These undertrial prisoners make up the largest part of the inmates; contributing largely to the overcrowding and making any reforms meaningless. Besides the inherent culture of rights abuses in prisons, overcrowding compounds the mess. Ask any well-intentioned prison administrator, who may once had been impassioned to ameliorate the prison environment, and he would describe overcrowding as the most appalling factor aggravating the chaos. This overcrowding neutralizes the effects of any planning or additional resources allocated to the prisons. An Amnesty report, available on its website, quotes Federal Ombudsman that the national overcrowding rate in the prisons of Pakistan is 134 percent. It’s an overwhelmingly large number for any civilized treatment of prisoners. It is a common experience with everyone of us that constricted space for our daily functions or routines has profound psychological effect on our well-being. Prisoners are no different. Lack of reasonably sufficient space do not only make them violent and lead to psychological problems, but can make them suicidal too. Effects of an over crowded space on body and mind in this hot and sultry weather are not hard to imagine. One of the traditional ways of jail staff to discipline an inmate is to make him “urri” which means that his place is changed every day and he has to look for space every day to live and sleep, bringing even the most hardened of them to their knees. We must keep in mind that these prisoners are supposed to be only bereft of their freedom of movement and compounding their punishment with inhuman and inhumane treatment has never been ??the purpose of either the legislature or the courts. We are bound by our international commitment too in the form of the Mandela Rules which prescribe the minimum level of dignity and decency in treating the prisoners.
Undertrial prisoners make up the largest part of the inmates.
Public awareness for the plight of the prisoners is all too important for resolving this issue. The stereotyping of the prisoners has further served to desensitize public to the pain of the inmates. Demanding harsh sentences and even public floggings and hangings is not something unheard of in our country, and even for the wrongdoings for which alternate penalties are available. This public desire and demand of putting anyone who transgresses the imagined ethical code behind bars has further diminished any sympathy (if there ever was) for the incarcerated. Putting aside the old debate among researchers of absence of a strong link between the punishments and the reduction in crime, locked up humans do not appear to move many. In the aftermath of any major crime incident, government tries to appear tough on crime and in its bid to do so, whatever little space the human rights defenders have gained for jail reforms, is lost. Therefore, sensitizing public on the issue is as important as convincing the media persons to shed off their stereotypes of the inmates.
Keeping people behind bars awaiting trials is an indescribably gross injustice. Obviously, judiciary is not going to accept the blame and would be very quick to pass the buck to the prosecution and non-professional attitude of defense lawyers for delays in trials. Executive too would come under fire for not constructing enough detention facilities. However, one organ of state, legislature, would be conspicuous by its absence in the whole debate. Legislature is the institution which has the most critical role to solve the problem by debating it and formulating a way for reducing the harsh sentences and unnecessary prison terms. Review of the prison sentences for minor offences need to be carried out by the legislators and also special trainings of the judges are required that how alternate remedies like non-custodial punishments where available shall be explored instead of time in prisons. A targeted evaluation of the prisoners should be carried out, for example, minor offences may be fined only; prisoners released on probation; use of assistive technology to keep trek of offendors insyaed of tiem in prisons; suspended sentences may be introduced in our country too; the old system of remissions should be restored which allowed reduction in sentence on good conduct by different administrative hierarchies, special holidays and acquiring a higher level of education while imprisoned.
There can be no better way of observing the Mandela Day than demanding a fair application of Mandela Rules to the prisoners.
The writer tweets @SaimaAhad3 and specializes in human rights and gender laws.