NEW DELHI: With an objective to reform prison management and ensure the transformation of inmates into law-abiding citizens and their rehabilitation, the Centre has taken a decision to review and revise 130-year-old colonial-era Prison Act.
The Ministry of Home Affairs led by Amit Shah has finalised a comprehensive ‘Model Prisons Act, 2023’, which may serve as a guiding document for the states, sources in the ministry said. Along with ‘The Prisons Act, 1894’, ‘The Prisoners Act, 1900’ and ‘The Transfer of Prisoners Act, 1950’ has also been reviewed by the MHA and relevant provisions of these Acts have been assimilated in the ‘Model Prisons Act, 2023’ and MHA official said.
The ‘Prisons Act, 1894’ mainly focuses on keeping criminals in custody and enforcement of discipline and order in prisons. The MHA action to review the act was taken up as “There is no provision for reform and rehabilitation of prisoners in the Act,” the MHA spokesperson said.
In the last few decades, an altogether new perspective has evolved about prisons. Prisons are not looked as places of retributive deterrence but are considered as reformative and correctional institutions where prisoners are transformed and rehabilitated.
The MHA, over the past few years, noted that there are several lacunae in the existing Prisons Act, which regulates the prison administration in all States and Union territories, with the exception of a few States who have enacted an Act. Besides, the conspicuous omission of the correctional focus in the existing Act, a need was felt to revise and upgrade the Act in tune with modern-day needs and requirements of prison management, the MHA spokesperson said.