More than 10.2 million people worldwide are held in prisons. A prison is a state of confinement and captivity for the law breakers who indulge in heinous crimes. People generally have thought that the criminals sent to prisons is out of punishment and not for punishment. People believe that prisoners are sent to prison as punishment, and not for punishment. This implies that the loss of an individuals right to liberty is enforced by containment in a closed environment. Thus keeping the individual in the custody of the state, should not, however, have a deleterious effect on him. But this is, unfortunately, the case to some degree or another in many of the worlds prisons. Is it possible then to define what is healthy environment in a prison? Let alone, talking about a prisoners right to health services that are to be provided to him by the prison authorities?
The answer to this question is that prisoners have unalienable rights conferred upon them by international treaties and covenants, they have a right to health care, and most certainly have a right not to contract diseases in prison. Prison jurisprudence recognizes that prisoners should not lose all their rights because of imprisonment. Yet, there is a loss of rights within custodial institutions, which continue to occur. Public health policies are meant to ensure the best possible living conditions for all members of society, so that everyone can be healthy. Prisoners are often forgotten in this equation. They are in constant contact with all kinds of people who come in and out of prison every day. This constant movement in and out of prison makes it all the more important to control any contagious disease within the prison so that it does not spread into the outside community.
Majority of prisoners in India are uneducated, poor, belonging to marginalized section of the society who has limited knowledge about their health and lifestyle practices. As a result, they constitute a distinct and vulnerable health population that requires special privileges. While the lack of awareness about the health of prisoners is a major human rights concern, the need to manage illness in jails as part of a bigger public health agenda and as part of primary healthcare is a concept that has yet to catch on in India. This article examines the present state of prison healthcare in India, as well as the different potential opportunities that the “jail window” affords for reaching those members of society who do not have access to basic healthcare or are unable to do so.
In India, overcrowding has aggravated the problem of hygiene. In many jails, conditions are appalling. At the tehsil level jails, even rudimentary conveniences are not provided. Prisoners in India are not even tested for specific infectious diseases, although all prisoners undergo a medical examination when they begin serving their sentence. No studies of the prevalence of viral infections among prison inmates have been done at a national level. India’s prison manuals provide for segregation of prisoners suspected of having contagious diseases. A few jails have established informal contacts with medical and social organizations for counseling of inmates to prevent the spread of infections. Violence in prison settings has many causes. Clashes may have ethnic causes, or rivalries between clans or gangs. The closed, often vastly overcrowded, living conditions also lead to hostilities between inmates. The tedious prison environment, lack of occupation of mind and body and just plain boredom, lead to accumulated frustration and tension. This environment leads the way to high-risk activities, such as use of drugs and sex between men. Some indulge in these activities to combat boredom. Others, however, are forced to engage in them, in a coercive play for power or monetary gain. Risky lifestyles can lead to the transmission of diseases from one prisoner to other prisoners, and pose a serious public health risk if unchecked. Contracting any disease in prison is not part of a prisoners sentence. This fact becomes even more significant when the disease is potentially fatal, as is the case with HIV/AIDS.
The Supreme Court of India in its landmark judgment in Parmanand Katara vs Union of India (1989)and others ruled that the state has an obligation to preserve life whether he is an innocent person or a criminal liable to punishment under the law. With specific reference to health, the right to conditions, adequate for the health and well-being of all was already recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ( ICESR) furthermore states that prisoners have a right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
“Our legal system, especially in severe instances, suffers from slow-motion syndrome, which is fatal to ‘fair trial’ whatever the end outcome,” Justice Krishna Iyer said while dealing with the bail petition in Babu Singh v. State of UP. He also added that speedy justice is a component of social justice since the community as a whole care about the criminal being treated with dignity and eventually punished in a fair amount of time, and the innocent being spared from the suffering of criminal or civil processes.
Both prison reform and penal reform are crucial elements if the many problems affecting the Indian prisons are to be resolved. Diminishing the overall prison population will allow improvements of the physical and working conditions of the prisons, and help to ensure the security of all individuals in custody. Obviously, financial resources will have to be allotted to the prison systems as well. One effective way to curb the rise in prison populations would be to offer alternatives to imprisonment for non-violent and civil offenders.
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