Congestion in prisons in India came into renewed focus after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Courts took urgent measures to prevent the spread of the contagious virus in prisons, asking state governments to set up high powered committees to release incarcerated persons on bail or parole. As a consequence, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the number of prisoners in the country would have reduced drastically in 2020.
But what does the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)’s annual Prison Statistics of India (PSI) report of 2020 suggest? It says that 16,31,110 persons were held in various jails in the year 2020. The occupancy rate of prisons was 118% of their capacity. Contrary to expectations, around 40,000 more undertrials were held in prisons in 2020 than in 2019.
While overcrowding in prisons is a concern even during normal times, it is an even bigger concern amidst a global pandemic caused by a highly contagious virus. The state was expected to take measures to decongest prisons, however, the data paints a disappointing picture. The high occupancy rate of prisons and the increase in the number of undertrials show that the criminal justice system has only further hardened its approach towards the management of crime.
In 2020, there was a 41.2% decline in the release of convicts and a 19.6% decline in the release of undertrials. While more prisoners were expected to be released during the pandemic, there was in fact a considerable decline.
In striking contrast to what the situation warranted, the governments seemed to be more comfortable exposing prisoners to the perils of the pandemic rather than releasing them. While the governments failed to decongest prisons, the PSI report does not even address or discuss the consequences of this failure.
Invisibilisation of the impact of pandemic
While the NCRB does refer to the pandemic in the PSI report, they only focus on the mitigation efforts taken by the prison administration.
The PSI report says that the ratio of the sanctioned strength of medical staff to prisoners is around 1:125 and the ratio of the actual strength of medical staff to the actual number of prisoners is around 1:219. Further, only 4.5% of the budget for prisons is used for medical matters. Such an abysmally poor medical budget, strength of medical staff and necessary care, is inadequate even during normal times.
The pandemic has highlighted how the system can crumble during such an unprecedented crisis – not just in prions, but even in general. Several reports have shown that every few months, there are outbreaks of COVID-19 in prisons which spiral out of control.
The PSI report reveals that there was a 7% increase in the number of deaths in 2020 compared to 2019. Out of 1,887 total deaths, 1,642 have been reported as ‘natural’ deaths. The report refers to deaths caused due to ageing and illness as ‘natural’ death. Illnesses causing death include heart, lung, kidney, liver problems, et al. Besides deaths due to specific illnesses, the report shows a rise in deaths from 22.7% in 2019 to 27% in 2020 – under the ‘other’ illnesses category. During a pandemic year, this rise can be attributed to COVID-19 related deaths. However, the report does not specifically reveal the number of deaths that were caused by COVID-19. In fact, it doesn’t even mention the number of prisoners infected by the coronavirus.
While the state failed to provide this data, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) collated data from media reports. It estimates that 18,157 prisoners and prison staff were infected during the first wave of the virus (from March 2020 until February 2021). It also states that at least 17 people died due to COVID-19 in the same period.
While the PSI report classifies death due to COVID-19 infection as a ‘natural’ death, the failure to adequately test and treat those infected would arguably amount to ‘death due to negligence’ of the state. In absence of data on the number of prisoners tested, infected and those who succumbed to the virus, there is no way to truly understand the scale of the crisis.
Another statistic also provides an insight into the state’s response to the pandemic. The NCRB Crimes in India (CII) report of 2020 shows a drastic rise in the crime rate under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code – a provision invoked under the Epidemic Act. The said crime rate has increased from 1.7 in 2018 and 2.2 in 2019 to a whopping 45.2 in 2020.
Despite news reports about arrests for lockdown violations, there is no data on how many people were incarcerated under the emergency laws that are in place during the pandemic. The state has almost invisibilised the impact of the global pandemic on the lives of incarcerated persons.
The information that the state reveals and that it chooses not to reveal can drive the narrative in its favour. By merely highlighting the mitigation efforts, the government creates an illusion of proactiveness. However, a close and contextual reading of the PSI – its gaps and silences – and the insight provided by the CHRI report indicate the criminal justice system’s preoccupation with crime control and maintenance of law and order, even at the cost of the health and lives of incarcerated people.
When the government takes away a person’s liberty, it is obliged to look after them and provide them with proper and timely healthcare. During the pandemic, governments continued to indiscriminately incarcerate people. They also threw caution to the wind when it came to the prisoners’ wellbeing. The pandemic thus brought to the fore not only the plight of healthcare in prisons, but also that governments resort to excessive imprisonment as the solution to all problems.
Saranga Ugalmugle is a lawyer and has recently completed her LLM from Azim Premji University. Ancy Susan George has also just finished her LLM from Azim Premji University.