Responding To The Pandemic: Prisons And Overcrowding 2020

The pandemic has brought to focus the issue of overcrowding in Indian prisons with the Supreme Court taking cognizance of the vulnerability of prisoners and instituting a suo moto petition, In Re: Contagion of Covid-19 Virus in Prisons. On the direction of the Court, a High Powered Committee was constituted in every state/ union territory to determine the categories of prisoners to be released on interim bail/ parole or furlough to reduce overcrowding in prisons.

CHRI’s report examines the functioning and the efforts made by the High Powered Committee (HPC) of 24 States/UTs during the period April to June 2020 and analyses the impact of decongestion efforts on prison populations across these states. It also analyses the functioning of the UTRCs of 17 states and union territories during the said period, and assesses the compliance with the mandate to meet weekly, and analyses the minutes of their meetings from across five regions to understand the role of the UTRCs in the decongestion process.

The report is aimed at sharing good practices among states and hopes to initiate dialogue among stakeholders for possible future solutions to address the systemic issue of overcrowding in prisons. Click here to download the reports. Responding to the Pandemic  Prisons & Overcrowding Vol 1 | Responding to the Pandemic Prisons & Overcrowding Vol 2

You can read the Executive Summary of the report here