Continued from 1, January 2011.
Earlier I made a mention about Penology, the Science of Punishment during my M.A.course at the Hari Singh Gour Viswa Vidhyalaya,Sagar and then we thought the punishment was a science and later when I joined the faculty of the police training college,Thiruvananthapuram,I authored a book titled CRIMINOLOGY and PENOLOGY for reference purposes. It was a time when no authentic books were available on the subject to teach the police officials.Penology,Paena,Penitentiary,Punishment,Prisoner,Jailor,Warder,Hard labour,Chains,Handcuffs,Cells,Solitary confinement etc., were the frequently used words in the class rooms. At that time, the concepts seen in the Standard Minimum Rules were simply wonderful .The expression "Treatment of Prisoners" was novel and precisely therefore quite understandable. But today, many questions are asked. Who needs treatment?-the family? - the society? -the culture? -the law enforcement machinery? -the criminal justice system? -the laws and procedure? -the institution for housing the crime-doers? There is a view now that the treatment is more required to the prison staff than the prisoners.For,some of the prison staff are notoriously proved to be more criminal in their attitude, approach and behavior than most of the prisoners inside. True or false the above statement, a situation has now emerged to rethink more about the title of the U.N.Rules and to say whether or not it is proper and justifiable to retain the title as it was in 1955.
Prisons have a negative content pregnant with fear, hatred, contempt and avoidance. Prisons were centres of punishment which really meant infliction of pain-physical, mental or both. Many a time, they offered physical and mental pain. They were centres of torture where human personality development had no scope and meaning. An utter unconcern for human personality and that was the key-note and specialty of every prison all over the world. Prisons were the centres of detention and in 1704,they became centres of punishment. They really inflicted pain in various was-in all categories and descriptions until it was accepted as centres of correction. The United Nations had a decisive role to play for effecting that shift from the centres of torture to the centres of correction. The U.N. Rule helped a lot in that area. But today, the centres of correction are no more known as prisons. They are the centres of correction and then how can the U.N.still call the inmates in such centres to be prisoners? In many countries, the Prisons Department is renamed as the Department of Correction. Nevertheless, the expression, correction, too has a negative content and it is not desirable to give a feeling for those who stay in a prison to develop a feeling that they are people who need to be corrected. In my view they are individuals who need to develop their personality further in an upright way. It is not correcting the personality, but developing it just like the children develop their personality. Everyone wants development of personality in an upright way in the right direction and a prisoner is no exception to it.Most of the people who commit crimes are not incarcerated and it is erroneous to think that only those who are in the jails –i.e., just a few among the crime-doers-need correction. All others are O.K.? There is a genuine feeling that those who are incarcerated are the unfortunates who are either poor financially or are helpless to employ veteran lawyers to argue their cases before the judges. Whatever that be, everyone needs personality development and therefore, in my view,the presently employed term 'correctional institutions' should be better substituted by an appropriate word having more positive content and purity of purpose. Why don't we rename the Centres of Correction to be CENTRES OF PERSONALITY DEVEOPMENT?Prisoner is a forgotten word and concept now and therefore the U.N. may think of changing the title of the RULES to be STANDARD MINIMUM RULES FOR THE CENTRES OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT.
Obviously a question is asked. Why do I delete the words TREATMENT OF PRISONERS from the title of the RULES? The obvious reason is that the title need to be institution centred and not individual centred.An individual in an institution is a part of the institution and therefore it goes without saying that he or she is there always. An institution has many-many areas which need to be studied and evaluated. The RULES ought to confine to all such areas for a total development of the personality of the individuals housed therein. Treatment is intended to for sick people and my researches show that all those who commit crimes or confined to prisons are not at all sick people. There are innocent people convicted-there are short termers who do not require any treatment at all-there are people who are above treatment-there are recidivists who relapse into crimes even after the so-called treatment in prisons. There are moralists, religious men, civic-minded people, philanthropists, people having very high life-values living in prisons and they do not require any sort of treatment. Most unfortunately, many prisons do not have properly qualified personnel for treatment so much so that the residents in a prison live there as confined or caged individuals. If at all some of the academically qualified personnel work in a prison, they may not have integrity of character to treat the inmates. In any case, treatment is a wrong word as imprisonment is imprisonment in real life. There is a stigma attached to incarceration and the convicted feel "less" in front of others in society. A person released from a mental hospital is treated to be a mental patient. Just like that, a person released after his treatment in a prison/penal institution is considered to be a "CONVICTED AFTERALL" by many in society. On the contrary, if he comes out of a Centre For Personality Development, he may not have great difficulty to project out his personality in social life.(to be continued…)
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