Police Reform

CHRI's police reforms programme aims to realise increased demand for rights-based police reform and the strengthening of police accountability in the Commonwealth.

Right to Information

Public accountability is one of the essential ingredients of transparent governance. The need for such accountability increases manifold when the institution in subject is a prison.

Strategic Initiatives : Strategic Litigation

We pursue the issues of dismal prison oversight and unnecessary, prolonged and wrongful detention of prisoners before the judiciary to ensure that laws are interpreted and enforced properly.

Urgent Action

While all prison population is vulnerable due to the constraints of incarceration, certain groups of people are particularly vulnerable inside prisons because of their low status in society, their physical or mental vulnerability and lack of recourse available to them.

Capacity Building

As part of generating greater accountability on the part of criminal justice system actors and their compliance to the law, it is imperative to build their capacities as regards the knowledge and application of the law, the rights of the accused and duties and obligations of officials in the system.

Legal Clinics

The Constitution of India under Article 39A, 14 and 21 safeguards the right of a person to secure justice notwithstanding his/her economic, social or mental status.

Ensuring Effective Representation

Early access to counsel is a crucial indicator of effective representation. One of the vital buffers against torture, ill treatment, confessional statements and illegal detention is access to a well trained lawyer primarily at the time of arrest and first appearance in Courts.

Undertrial Review Committees

71 % prisoners are awaiting trial in India. They are not yet proven guilty but they have spent often years at length in detention. This has contributed to prison overcrowding that results in desperate living conditions.

Prison Visiting System

As long back as 1894, the government accepted by way of Section 59(25) in the Prison Act that a system of visitors both from civil society and government in prisons would be of value to the management and monitoring of prisons. Thus, making it mandatory to have a prison visiting system at place.