New Delhi: The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Shri Hansraj Gangaram Ahir will inaugurate the 5th National Conference of Heads of Prisons of States and UTs on Prison Reforms, here tomorrow. The two-day conference is being organized by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D).
This conference would provide a platform to the stakeholders viz. the correctional administrators in states/UTs to exchange ideas and learn from each other’s experience. It would also provide them an opportunity to showcase their best practices and innovations. The deliberations among the leading Prison Administrators of the country will present some policy imperatives and suggest measures in improving the quality of correctional services.
The conference will be attended by senior officers heading the Prison departments of States and Union Territories. For the first time, the Superintendents of Jails from Central Jails and District Jails have also been invited to share their views and experiences. The representatives from leading Universities, NGOs, and students of Law and Criminology Departments will be attending the conference for the first time. As such it is expected that more than 125 delegates viz. Senior Prison Officers, Jail Superintendents, NGOs, Academicians, Students etc. will participate in the conference. Their presence would further enrich the deliberations. Their participation will bring in fresh perspective to understand the requirements of the present prison population and their families in terms of humane prison services, reformation and rehabilitation measures and adherence to human rights.
The conference will have important sessions on Rehabilitation / Reintegration of prisoners, Technology for Prisons, Security in Prisons and Best Practices in prisons with special reference to agriculture and industry. This would be followed by Open House discussion in which ideas from the states and new challenges would be discussed and recommendations of the conference shall be finalized.
Leading practitioners, subject experts, academicians, representatives from NGOs will address the delegates on the above issues. A large number of NGOs working in various aspects of Prison Reforms and in prisoners’ rehabilitation / reintegration will participate in the conference. Representatives from the Departments of Criminology in many universities have also been invited to participate in the conference.
On September 30, 2016, Ms. Lalitha Kumaramangalam, Chairperson, National Commission of Women (NCW) will deliver the valedictory address. Later in the afternoon, the delegates will visit the Tihar Jail which is the largest prison complex in the country to see the Best Practices and Systems in use there.
On this occasion, a compendium is also being brought out. Best Practices in Prison Management in various States and UTs have been documented in this compendium. Their sharing and recognition will help to motivate the correctional administrators of all ranks. Some of the seminal orders and judgments of the Supreme Court and research studies sponsored by BPR&D have also been compiled to provide a roadmap for improving the correctional services.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has assigned the work related to correctional administration to BPR&D. The charter of functions includes the study of problems affecting prison administration and promotion of research and training in this field. BPR&D has conducted several research and training programmes through State Governments and academic Institutions. It has also undertaken in-house research projects on issues deserving priority attention from the point of view of public policy.
In the field of Correctional Services, BPR&D has organized five All India Prison Duty Meets so far. In the last ten years, BPR&D has sponsored several seminars and conferences and organized 184 courses to train prison officers of various ranks.
In pursuance to this charter of functions, the first All India Conference of Heads of Prison Department was organized in New Delhi in March, 2004 to discuss relevant issues concerning Prison Reforms in the changing scenario and to identify problems being faced by the Correctional Administrators in different parts of the country. The conference was organized with a view to obtain professional feedback from the States on the problems being faced by the Correctional Administrators in managing their prisons and suggest measures for improving the Prison Administration in the country. Since then, three more National Conferences have been organized by the BPR&D and MHA in 2008, 2010, 2013 with these objectives. The conference provides a platform to the functionaries of Prison Administration throughout the country to interact with each other on various issues being faced by them on operational levels and identify priority areas for Prison Reforms.
In the last four conferences, the broad topics that have been discussed include augmentation of Prison Training, Prison Modernization, status of adoption of Model Prison Manual prepared by BPR&D, recommendations of the Draft National Policy on Prisons, prison overcrowding, reducing the number of undertrial prisoners in India, professional development and well-being of prison staff, enactment of Prison Act, public-private partnerships in prisons, human resource management in prisons, classification of prisons and prisoners and research and development in Prison Management.
1 comment