NEW DELHI: The number of graduates lodged in prisons across the country increased alarmingly in 2017. According to the latest Prison Statistics report for the year 2017 compiled by NCRB, the number of graduate inmates in prisons across India was 27,561 which was higher not just numerically but proportionately as well, when compared to the corresponding data for 2016 — 25,396. The proportion of graduate prisoners in the country’s prisons showed an overall increase of .2%.
The situation seems grimmer if one digs up corresponding figures for 2015 when the number of graduates in India’s prisons was 23,674. The number of post-graduate jail inmates also increased from 7,647 in 2016 to 7,896 in 2017.
On the other hand, the number of prisoners availing education inside jails has gone down, according to the report. A total of 1,16,968 prisoners availed education in 2017 whereas the number was 1,30,443 in 2016. Numbers have gone down in most categories of education — elementary, adult and computer course, too.
While 54,776 prisoners benefitted from elementary education in 2016, the number came down to 50,751 in 2017. In the category of ‘adult education’, the numbers came down from 53,965 to 44,338. Similarly, only 8,341 prisoners undertook computer course in 2017 compared to 8,779 in the previous year.
Higher education was the only category which showed a slight increase as the number of prisoners went up from 12,923 to 13,538.