Lifer for 50 of 90 convicts in Central Jail
Amresh Parab
Panaji: With 55.6% of the convicts in the state undergoing life sentence, Goa has emerged as one among the 13 states where the number of such convicts is more than the national average of 55.4%.
Goa’s Central Jail located in Colvale has 90 convicts out of which 50 were undergoing life imprisonment, states the Prison Statistics India 2023 report released recently by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi.
The report further states that 12 convicts in the Central Jail were serving a sentence of 10 to 13 years, while nine were undergoing sentence of 7 to 9 years and eight convicts were serving 2-4 year sentence. According to the report, while four of the 90 convicts were undergoing a sentence of less than two years, seven convicts were serving a sentence of less than a year.
The 12 other states where the number of convicts serving life sentence is more than the national average include Jharkhand with 76.6% of the convicts undergoing life sentence, Chhattisgarh (75.3%), Andhra Pradesh (68.9%), Karnataka (64.7%), Telangana (64.1%), Bihar (63.2%), Gujarat (63.1%), Assam (62.3%), Odisha (61.4%), Rajasthan (59.9%), Madhya Pradesh (59.3%) and Maharashtra (58.3%).
In its report, the NCRB has said there is a paradigm shift with regard to the social perspective towards prisoners in the last century. It has said that the earlier system of a prison with punitive attitude wherein inmates were forcibly confined and deprived freedom as a form of punishment has changed with a change in the social perception towards prison and prisoners.
“A prison is now treated as a correction or improvement facility, which itself indicates that there is more emphasis on reformation of the prisoners than punishment,” the report states.
In the last few decades, prison population has increased thus leading to a number of challenges for prison administration like security and safety, hygiene issues, overcrowding, etc.
According to the NCRB report, overall in the country, 75,040 out of the 1,35,536 convicts were undergoing life imprisonment, accounting for 55.4% of the total convicts. The report states that a total of 22,435 convicts were undergoing sentences for a period between 10 years and 13 plus years, accounting for 16.6% of the total convicts.
