Colombo Additional Magistrate Pasan Amarasena has advised prison officials to treat remand prisoners humanely and to refrain from bringing them to Courts in chains. He reminded them that individuals in remand custody are also human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity. The Magistrate made these remarks after observing a group of remand prisoners being brought into the Courtroom shackled in chains. “I do not like suspects being chained like animals and presented to Court. They are human beings and should be treated as such,” the Additional Magistrate stated in Open Court.
No doubt, all right thinking citizens will endorse the views of the Additional Magistrate. Presently, long lines of remand prisoners are being paraded to Court houses, chained to each other at the wrists. This could have grave repercussions on them psychologically and turn them even bitterer towards society as a whole. If the whole intention of placing them in remand is to make them repent their wrongs and correct themselves, acts such as these would only have the opposite effect. Instead of having them rehabilitated, the law enforcement by acts such as these will only make them worse for the experience and send out to society even more dangerous offenders. Besides, how is this parading of remand prisoners going to affect their children? Won’t this leave a scar in their minds and even take after their fathers? Hence, the Additional Magistrate’s advice to the prison officers is not only valid from a humanitarian angle, but is also an eminently logical one.
Of course, prison officers may have good reasons for bringing remand prisoners to Courts manacled. There have been instances in the past where remand prisoners had tried to escape while being brought to Court. Some remand prisoners even tend to turn violent. Hence, the move could be a precaution. However, an alternative method should be explored, that, while covering all such possibilities, also finds a more humane way to treat remand prisoners in public.
All jailed inmates should be treated humanely as far as possible .True, our prisons are reeking of sleaze and are repositories of a subterranean life involving both inmates and corrupt officials. It was reported that over 100 mobile phones had been recovered from inmates in an outstation prison recently. How these got into their hands is not difficult to guess. Drugs are in free circulation in our prisons both brought by visiting relatives and supplied by corrupt officers. In fact, for some inmates, prisons have turned out to be a “home away from home”. Even criminal activity is rampant in our prisons. Some inmates are in close contact with their gangs and organize robberies and even murder from behind the prison walls. The killing of High Court Judge Sarath Ambeypitiya was organized from within Welikada.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has pledged to completely reorganize and overhaul our prison system as one of his priorities. He should begin by dealing with the question of prison congestion. The prisons are bursting at the seams and with the decision made not to construct any more prisons the problem could only get aggravated. The main reason for prison riots is overcrowding, as can be understood. Our prisons date back to the colonial era and their run-down state and primitive facilities are only to be expected. Hence, if there aren’t going to be any more prisons built, the least that could be done is to modernize and rearrange prison accommodation so that these prisons become less of a hell for the inmates.
President Dissanayake should also effect a complete overhaul of the prison staff, getting rid of all the corrupt officers who had made a mockery out of our prison system by their conduct. Whatever changes are made in the prison system, as long as these officials remain in their present positions these are not going to work. Most of all, the President must look at ways for reducing prison congestion as another priority. A system should be devised to release all prisoners held for minor offences, non-payment of fines and also the aged inmates. Presently, this is being done only on special occasions such as Vesak, Poson and Independence Day.
However, the problem keeps growing, as seen by numbers exceeding the capacity. A more phased out programme should be worked out in this connection. This way, with the reduction in numbers, more attention could be paid towards the rehabilitation of the hardcore elements with a view to send them out into society some day. This could also pave the way for changing the whole outlook of prisons.
In developed countries, the concept of prisons has taken on a new meaning. Prisoners are not confined behind walls on a permanent basis, but allowed a certain amount of leeway to interact with the outside world and are constantly provided with psychological counseling. This way, those prisoners are made to come out of their isolation and criminal tendencies to some degree. We too should try out such a method, where prisoners are no longer being condemned almost as animals.
