Jail Story

• A Supreme Court directive in 2005 ordered the shifting of
  Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, a Lok Sabha RJD MP criminal from the Beur
  Jail in Patna to Tihar Jail in New Delhi. The intention was not only to
  force the tainted member to abide by the jail manual but also to restore
  order in Bihar's prison administration. The Judgment was significant as it
  had ordered the trial of all pending criminal cases against him would
  continue in Patna through video-conferencing. Yadav had allegedly turned
  Beur Jail into a personal retreat, throwing all established norms to thin
  air. Because of the high political connections Yadav had, the matter was
  high-profile.

• The entire trial of the high profile case of Abdul Karim
  Telgi, the main kingpin amongst the 11 accused in the 'fake stamp paper
  case' was done through video-conferencing. In March 2004, the Supreme
  Court had directed the CBI to investigate 48 fake stamp cases spread over 11
  States. It was decided to use the video-conferencing facility between
  Yerwada Jail, Pune and special court, Mumbai for the trial hearing keeping
  in view Telgi's poor health, security and other logistic reasons. The
  trial of the case was a milestone in the criminal justice system as the
  entire proceeding was conducted through video-conferencing, with Telgi not
  being physically produced before the court at all.

Instances of files piling up to gather dust, incomplete prisoner
information, or cases of prisoners escaping, or getting attacked, on way to the
courts would now be things of the past. With many prisons adopting various
e-enabled services and applications, information technology tools have truly
started to make a difference to the way jails operate in India.

e-tools are assisting the jail authorities create a central
database for managing information flow in prisons across India. Some of the most
widely used initiatives, such as video-conferencing and Prisoner Management
Systems, have facilitated easy governance inside jails, besides reducing
expenditure, time and security risks.

"No one really thought of IT in jails, in spite of its
immense possibilities," said Rajiv Saxena, deputy director general, NIC.
"For instance," continued Saxena, "Tihar is a huge complex spread
over an area of about 400 acres, with over 10 jails. Managing such a huge
complex with more prisoners than its sanctioned capacity, requires an efficient
application that would enable transparency and allow information flow. IT can
solve a lot of problems."

SB Sawarkar, IG, Prisons, Maharashtra, corroborates Saxena's
point. "Basically, technology and the various electronic instruments is the
only answer for better performance of managing any big institution." He
continues, "Prisons are a very important part of the criminal justice
system, entrusted with the responsibility of keeping criminals away from the
society."

Sawarkar says that the prison administration faces a lot of
issues like training, security, separation of criminals from society, judicial
work and safety of prisoners also to an extent. "To attend to all these
issues we have to use various electronic instruments which are supported and
monitored through computerization."

Video-conferencing Ahoy!

Perhaps the most extensively used IT tool, video-conferencing has been
significant in achieving goals of minimizing security risks, and expenditure of
the state governments.

Andhra Pradesh, which has a track record of many IT initiatives,
was the first one to deploy video-conferencing in jails in early 2001. This was
later taken up by states like Maharashtra and Delhi.

"Our biggest concern was the security of the inmates. On an
average, hundreds of under-trials were taken to the district magistrate on a
daily basis for remand," said Riazuddin Ahmed, additional inspector general
(Prisons), Hyderabad.

Chanchalguda central jail-which had more than 1,600
under-trials-and the Nampally city criminal court in Adhra Pradesh, were the
first to be linked at a cost of Rs 150,000. Television sets and digital video
cameras were installed at both ends and connected through ISDN lines.

"Video-conferencing has saved the jail authorities the pain
of going through the drill of waking up the prisoner early in the morningto
getting security checks, on the day of the court hearing," said Saxena.

e-tools are assisting the jail authorities create a central database for managing information flow in prisons across India

Besides this, it also checked the wastage of resources. Earlier,
when prisoners were taken to the courts, proper security had to be ensured along
with a mode of transport. As a result, there were large number of security
breaches and delays-as cases would be pending at the district magistrates'
level for days and months.

Relating an experience from Tihar, BD Gupta, director general of
Tihar Prisons, added, "In the case of inmates with a hardcore criminal
background, there was a lingering fear that they could escape."

Moreover, hardcore prisoners would also very often pick up
fights while on the way to court, said Gupta. He added, "Video-conferencing
has minimized the movement of inmates." LAN based, video-conferencing was
introduced in Tihar in January 2005.

Shortage of escort personnel added to the troubles faced by the
jail officials. According to Ahmed, "More than 1,000 men were required in a
year to escort the prisoners to the court premises, and they were paid escort
allowances."

The Bijapur Central Jail in Karnataka too got video-conferencing
facility two years back, based on an ISDN facility. The video-conferencing in
the Karnataka jails was shortly introduced after an incident of attack on
Mallikarjuna Chadchana, an under trial, while he was being brought back to
Bijapur after his deposition before a Belgaum court. The facility has been a
part of the Union Government-sponsored jail modernization scheme and Rs
10,00,000 had been spent on it, he said.

After a High Court order allowing use of video-linkage system in
Tihar in 2002, for extension of prisoners remand, the system was implemented in
the three metro cities of Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai with the provision for
video-conferencing.

According to the official figures of the Delhi Government, the
new system has saved up to Rs 4.5 crore per annum in Delhi alone.

PMS Scores High

Another IT initiative, which is fast catching up with many states is the
Prison Management System and the Visitors Management System. Accurate record of
prisoners and their visitors are now available at the click of a mouse.

"The prime intention is to integrate all the Central Jails of India with the police departments, for sharing information about prisoners, and their visitors at the national level" -Rajiv Saxena, deputy director general, NIC

The PMS developed and implemented by NIC was an application
introduced to enhance the efficiency of the administrative mechanism at Tihar.
The Jail houses over 14,000 inmates presently. The application has allowed the
jail authorities to keep details pertaining to the jail inmates in a central
database. The details include: category of the prisoner, criminal record, year
of entry, biometric details right at the time of their entry, prisoner number,
photograph, personal details (age, address, information related to family
members), medical details, lodging etc.

The biometric details too consist of prisoners' photograph and
fingerprint, which is used for verification of the prisoners in case of
duplicate entry of the prisoners. "The PMS allowed us to adopt a systematic
and uniform approach to handling information about the prisoners in the Tihar
Jail," said Sunil Kumar Gupta, Central Jail, Tihar. The software has played
an important role in supporting a record of movement of inmates inside and
outside the jail, including court cases details about the proceeding of the
hearing, said BD Gupta.

PMS is a G2G and G2C e-Governance tool. "The application
has been crucial in providing information to the prison officials, about the
inmates under their custody," said Saxena. While the prisoner database
consists of details of 16,000 prisoners; 40,000 fingerprints and 60,000
photographs.

According to Saxena, the PMS application is supported by open
database connectivity, which ensures access to any data from any application,
regardless of which database management system (DBMS) is handling the data.
"It has been installed in 16 central jails located at various places in
India after required changes made at database level," he added.

"The prime intention is to integrate all the Central Jails
of India with the police departments for sharing information about prisoners at
national level so that police officials can retrieve information of prisoners
and their visitors," said Saxena.

Managing Visitors

The visitors too are benefiting from the e-governance tools that have
facilitated a systematic approach in the form of a visitor's management system
application. No longer are they required to stand in long queues for extended
hours to get permission to meet inmates. The application was introduced in 2005.

A call center was set up in the Tihar Prison complex, where
visitors get their booking for meetings in advance. On the day of the meeting
they just collect their slips in order to meet the inmate. At the entry point,
their pictures are also taken. The jail authorities are keeping a record of
that. "It has benefited the visitors tremendously as earlier they had to
wait for hours to get clearance," said a senior jail official. Is it not a
silent revolution?

Urvashi Kaul

urvashik@cybermedia.co.in