Problems and solutions: Prison authorities, experts suggest reforms for detention centres

Sindh chief secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiana speaks with prisoners during a visit to the Central Jail in Karachi. PHOTO: INP

KARACHI: Prison authorities want the Sindh government to form two separate forces for jails in the province.

“One force should deal with the management of the detention centres and the other should deal exclusively with security,” said Prisons IG Nusrat Mangan on Wednesday. “There should be separation in jail staff too. A constable dealing with terrorists should not be tasked with looking after women and juvenile inmates.”

IG Mangan was speaking at the launch of a report, ‘Sindh Prison Reforms: Through the Lens of Legal Aid, From Current Issues to Recommending Security and Legislative Measures’ by the Legal Aid Office (LAO).

Mangan revealed that last week, the Sindh government had granted them Rs750 million to improve security measures. The funds would be used to construct bomb-proof walls around jails in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur.

According to the officer, the majority of inmates in the province were under-trial-prisoners.
With a total capacity of around 11,827 prisoners, the jails in Sindh were currently catering to around 18,651 inmates. Of these, 3,400 were convicts while the rest were UTPs.

He said that the number of prisoners had been reduced to 16,000 last year, from 22,000 in 2008 and 2009. But from December 2013, the figure had jumped to 18,651 and was increasing with each passing day.

CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy, who was part of the audience, questioned Mangan about the presence of mobile phones in the jail. He also asked why people living in the vicinity were made to suffer because of the jammers and why only one cellular company was functioning properly in the area.

Mangan replied that the jammers were being narrowed down and that no cellular company services were reaching the prisoners. He admitted, however, that the infiltration of mobile phones was a problem, not just in Pakistan, but in many countries.

The report
Advocate and Professor Dr Akmal Wasim gave an overview of the report, based on the interviews of 2,333 UTPs, as well as interviews of officials. He said that one of the major problems in Karachi’s prison was overcrowding. “Overcrowding is a major issue at the Karachi Central Jail. In contrast, the rest of the prisons in Sindh are under-populated.”

The report suggests that there should be a reduction in the length of stay of prisoners to curb this issue.

Wasim also emphasised on the separation and segregation of the inmates, saying that Section 27 of the Prisons Act, 1894, dealt with this right.

“The ordinary ones should be separated from the hardened, and the hardened from terrorists. Similarly, juveniles should be separated from adults.”  For this, more facilities should be built, he said, adding that the Sindh government should increase the budget for prisons.

Wasim also called for relocation of prisons. “Prisons are at risk because they are part of residential areas. They have to be moved out.”

The report suggests that prisons, for various reasons, ranging from socio-economic forces to ideological cohesion, serve as breeding grounds for the recruitment of violent extremists. It quoted the attack on Justice Maqbool Baqir last year and how it was planned by prisoners.

Retired Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, who is the chairperson and founder of the LAO, said that the prisons in Pakistan were better in terms of population, compared to jails in India and Bangladesh.
Addressing members of his fraternity, he said that lawyers should be more responsible when handling cases of people behind bars, urging them to keep their prejudices and biasness away from their work.

HRCP’s IA Rehman called for training and reform activities in jails. He was of the opinion that a person’s dignity was at stake when he entered the jail premises as he was cut off from his family, and faced humiliation from others too.

(By Our Correspondent) Published in GNN & Tribune, May 8th, 2014.

Regret, relief draw former inmates to Pennsylvania prison reunion

(GNN) - William Harrison knows the Eastern State Penitentiary all too well, having spent years locked up in the imposing fortress that today is a popular tourist attraction in Philadelphia.

Yet the 75-year-old former inmate freely attends reunions held each year by other former inmates, staff and guards, where they gather to share memories and trade stories.

"I just can't get over how I messed up my life," Harrison said on a visit to his old home ahead of this year's reunion, set for May 10.

"When you lose years, you can't get them back. When you are in a place like a prison, you just threw them away," he said.

At Eastern State reunions, held since 1992, inmates get a chance to describe their experiences in question-and-answer sessions with the public.

"Maybe it will help some of them not to get into trouble," said Harrison, a Philadelphia resident who first set foot in Eastern State at age 19.

In all, he served parts of three stints there - in 1959 for stealing a car, in 1962 for forging checks and in 1970 for assault.

The 980-cell Gothic-style prison, where massive gargoyles sit menacingly above its high-walled stone entrance, closed in 1971 after 142 years.

Among its best-known residents were mobster Al Capone and bank robber Willie Sutton. Lesser-known were bandits like Joe Buzzard and his four brothers, all locked up at one time or another for horse theft.

Former inmate Jimmy Dolan, 74, who also attends the reunions, recalls that it was not a bad place to do time. There, he said, he met inmates who became his colleagues in crime.

"You met your future partners in the prison system," he said. "Stealing... it was just a part of your life."

The atmosphere at the reunions is collegial, even though the memories of inmates and guards come from opposite sides of the bars, said Sean Kelley, senior vice president at the non-profit Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site Inc.

"There is absolutely no way to tell the officers from the inmates," he said. "They literally slap each other on the back."

These days, plaster crumbles from the vaulted ceilings and paint is peeling off the walls of the prison that drew more than 300,000 visitors last year, according to Kelley. That number has tripled in the last seven years, he said.

Similar reunions are held at California's historic Alcatraz prison each year, said Howard Levitt, spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

"It must be cathartic," Levitt said. "I think time on Alcatraz was significant for anyone who spent time there, whether you were a correctional officer or an inmate."

The 10-acre Eastern State, in Philadelphia's Fairmount neighborhood now filled with trendy restaurants, was opened in 1829.

Unlike many other prisons of its day which were large holding pens and work farms, it employed a Quaker-inspired system that isolated prisoners and encouraged them to reflect upon their crimes, according to the official website.

Cells had thick walls, skylights and private yards. Prisoners were made to wear hoods when they were moved so they would not see anyone else.

The system became a model of penal reform and was widely copied.

French political historian Alexis de Tocqueville visited in 1831 and wrote that the solitude leads prisoners "through reflection to remorse."

A decade later, Victorian novelist Charles Dickens described its "rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement" as "cruel and wrong."

By the time Dolan arrived in 1962 for a robbery conviction, the solitary confinement system had been abandoned.

"It wasn't bad at all," he said. "I tell you the truth."(Reuters)(GNN INT)

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Gunna Dickson)