Open Prisons Are Cost-Effective And Decrease The Burden On The Exchequer Of The State

A conventional or closed prison is an opaque institution while open prisons are radically different in principle, appearance and operations. Open prisons are prisons without bars. Unlike closed prisons, the open ones do not have huge boundary walls, tall watch towers or massive metal gates.

The prisoner is allowed liberty, that is, s/he is free from restraint imposed through confinement. An open prison is a trust-based system where the prisoner is kept under minimal surveillance. Prisoners live with their family and have the choice to leave the prison campus during daytime.

However, they have to return before the evening roll call. They are also encouraged to be independent and bear their own expenses and are thus allowed to take up jobs outside the prison campus and earn a living.

Bandi Panchayat

The Rajasthan open prisons are selfgoverned institutions; with each having its own bandi panchayat. It consists of not less than five and not more than seven prisoners, keeping in view the number of prisoners in a camp. The panch or the members are elected by the prisoners from within them and the term of each panchayat lasts for a year.
The panchayats deal with minor acts of omission/commission/misconduct of the prisoners and may impose minor penalties on the defaulters or curtail facilities. Such penalties are effective only on the approval of the officer-in-charge of the camp.
Apart from being responsible for maintaining discipline in the prison, the members of the panchayat also manage the administrative details of the prison. They conduct two daily roll calls of the prisoners, maintain the attendance register, collect electricity bills from the prisoners and ensure overall hygiene.
In the case of a severe breach of discipline or misconduct, the bandi panchayat may also decide to send the prisoner back to a closed prison (Chakraburtty 2017: 9).

Open Prisons In India

Types of Open Prisons

There are about 30 open prisons in Rajasthan (Chakraburtty 2017: 10) and more are under construction. The operational models of these prisons vary in that there are no fixed rules about the location, structure and capacity of the open prisons.
Some of the open prisons provide both lodging and employment. Whereas other open prisons provide only lodging and the prisoners have to look for their own employment.
The state also has government-run agricultural research institutes like the Bikaner Agricultural Farm (Chakraburtty 2017: 17) which houses prisoners along with their families. The prisoners are allotted work regularly at the research institute and are paid on a monthly basis.
They are free to go out of the open prison during daytime. The prisoner is provided with a small residential quarter, where s/he lives with family. The quarters have running water and electricity. In some open prisons the electricity is not provided for free but at a subsidised rate.
In the Sanganer Open Prison (Chakraburtty 2017: 12), prisoners are not provided with jobs inside the open prison campus, instead they have to look for jobs themselves. Prisoners go out of the open prison during daytime to earn a living and return to the prison by the end of the day before the evening roll call.
Some open prisons are built immediately next to the closed prison, at times even sharing the same boundary wall as that of the closed prison such as in Alwar and Sikkar. Whereas, in some places like Sanganer the open prison is about 30 km away from the Jaipur central jail. Sri Ganganagar district has an open prison in Jaitsar, which is 125 km away from the Sri Ganganagar district jail.

Prison Reforms In India

The capacity of the open prisons too varies. Sanganer is the largest open prison in the state, housing nearly 400 prisoners along with their families in one campus, whereas an open prison in Bikaner houses only 12 prisoners.
Open prisons do not require huge land area or expensive building construction. A minimum of 300 sq feet per prisoner is sufficient for keeping a prisoner along with his/her family members.
The prisoner quarters can be built in an agricultural farm and/or small apartments (two to three floors each) can be raised as prisoner quarters in order to save on land area. Also, most district and central jails have land area surrounding their boundary walls.
Small quarters can be built in these areas. There is no rule on how and where an open prison should be built. For example, in Jaitsar Open Prison, prisoners stay in temporary makeshift clay huts, while in Alwar Open Prison, they live in small cottages .

Several gaushalas (cow shelters) also employ prisoners and let them stay on the premises along with their families (Chakraburtty 2017: 22). This is a fairly new system, which was started over the past two or three years. These gaushalas are privately-run institutions and more often than not prisoners are paid wages way below the standard minimum wages.
However, not many prisoners complain about this, but it is also manipulative in nature because it makes forced labour appear as a compelling choice. Forced labour is a contemporary form of slavery, which has no place in a democracy.

Cost-effective

In open prisons, the prisoners earn their living and provide for themselves which means that the prison department does not have to spend on the prisoners’ food, medicine, water, electricity and wages.
The estimated annual expense for the Jaipur central jail (closed prison) is₹18,72,60,000, which is a little over 78 times (Chakraburtty 2017: 4) the annual expense of the Sanganer Open Prison, which is₹24,00,000 .
If only the staff salaries are compared in the two set-ups, we find that the government spends 60 times more on staff salaries in closed prisons as compared to the open ones.
Due to the much higher number of prisoners in the Jaipur central jail (2,200) as compared to Sanganer (400), the cost-per-prisoner in a closed prison appears less at₹7,093 per month, but even then it is 14 times more than the expense in Sanganer, where it is₹500 per prisoner per month

During the time of the study the Jaipur central jail had a staff strength of 339, whereas the sanctioned one was 404. The total expense on the staff salary per month in Jaipur central jail is₹1,20,55,000 whereas in the Sanganer Open Prison it is₹2,00,000 per month. Expense on staff salary in Jaipur central jail is 60 times more compared to Sanganer Open Prison.
At the time of the study Sanganer Open Prison operated on only one staff per 80 prisoners. Whereas in Jaipur central jail (closed prison), one staff was required for every six prisoners. The comparison shows that open prisons are less resource-intensive.

Alternatives To Traditional Prisons

Security-related expense forms a major part of the prison expense. Prison staff such as wardens and jailors form a part of prison security. Since open prison is a trust-based system and is operated on the principle of self-governance by the prisoners.
Thus, utility of prison staff for security purposes is negligible in open prisons. It must be understood here that the prison security expense is not incurred for the safekeeping of the prisoner but to keep the prisoner under surveillance for the safekeeping of the society from the prisoner.
When the same group of prisoners who are now staying in an open prison were staying in a closed prison, similar amount of money was spent on them for security purposes due to the perceived threat they posed or as presumed by society.
The expenditure on security per prisoner is a nebulous one, founded on a hypothetical assessment of threat to society rather than on an objective analysis of maximum utilisation of optimal resources. Incremental spending in closed prison structures provides diminishing utility on the infrastructural layout, creating excessive overhead resource burdens.
On the other hand, an open prison system not only humanises penal measures but strives towards a more economically viable model of incarceration.
According to the Rajasthan open prison rules, only convicted prisoners can stay in open prisons. After spending considerable amount of time in a closed prison and after being convicted, the prisoners are sent to an open prison.
As per prison rules they are eligible to stay in an open prison if they have shown good conduct, have completed five years inside a closed prison and have been convicted. In reality, however, due to lack of space in open prisons, these prisoners are shifted to open prisons based on seniority in the waiting list.
It takes an average 10 years of wait/stay in a closed prison before his/her serial number comes to be shifted to an open prison.
Out of the 428 prisoners interviewed, 206 were moved to open prison after completion of an average of nine to 11 years in a closed prison. Of these, 91 were shifted after completion of 11 to 13 years in a closed prison and 120 prisoners came to the open prison after completion of seven to nine years in a closed prison.
Eight prisoners were also found to have spent 13 to 15 years in a closed prison before being shifted to an open prison and only three prisoners came to the open prison after spending five to seven years in a closed one.
There is a huge population of prisoners in the closed prisons of Rajasthan (elsewhere in India too) who are eligible for stay in open prisons but are languishing in the closed ones. More open prisons are required to accommodate eligible prisoners.

Kinds of Offences

There is a long waiting period before a prisoner gets shifted to an open prison and therefore prisoners who are convicted for serious offences, usually under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (murder) are the ones who become eligible for stay in open prisons.
However, the nature of the crime does not determine whether the prisoner is capable of reform or not. The objective of having an open prison is to encourage good behaviour among inmates. They get an opportunity for social reintegration and to make a new beginning. Thus, the rate of recidivism is negligible in open prisons.
A majority of prisoners are found to have perpetrated an unplanned or accidental offence. Out of the 428 interviewed prisoners (Chakraburtty 2017: 4) 347 had no previous police record. This means that 81% of the prisoners were first-time offenders.
From the detailed interviews or “prisoner narratives,” it was observed that most conflicts that they were involved in were land-related ones and which resulted in grievous hurt and injury, leading to subsequent death.

India’s Open Prison Model

Some accidental deaths have happened during a drunken brawl. Out of the 428 prisoners, 244 prisoners, that is, 57% or more than half of the prisoners were convicted for an offence that was unplanned or had occurred accidentally.
Again, 175 prisoners (41%) had perpetrated other types or pre-planned offences, which included extortion and offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. Seven prisoners or 2% had also perpetrated revenge killing.
(In these calculations, dowry-related deaths or deaths caused due to domestic violence have not been included in the “unplanned” or “accidental offence”). What needs to be observed here is that even if a prisoner had perpetrated a revenge killing or was convicted under the NDPS Act, after coming to an open prison, no new offence was perpetrated.
The objective of incarceration is reform; thus if a prisoner has not reoffended while staying under minimal surveillance in an open prison, then the purpose of incarceration has been served. Also, if imprisonment is seen as a punishment then incarceration could be considered as the final punishment.
And incarceration does not necessarily have to be in a closed prison, since an open prison is also a prison.

Escape and Recidivism

It was found that prisoners rarely escape from open prisons and that a majority of the reported escapes are actually cases of breach of the parole rule. Parole is temporary leave from prison, in which he or she is allowed to go out of prison for a fixed number of days and return on a fixed date.
In most of these instances of breach of parole, the police had rearrested the prisoner from his/her home. On prison record these instances are recorded as absconding prisoners, because on the non-return of the prisoner on the scheduled day, the prison officials file an absconding report with the police.
Though these are hardly instances of prison escape, yet on record it appears as if the prisoners are absconding when they have actually breached or jumped parole. Breach of parole is considered an offence, but it cannot be counted as recidivism. The rate of recidivism is negligible in open prisons.

India’s Open Prison Model

It must be pointed out here that obtaining parole involves a highly complex process. The prisoner has to give a personal bond, a secondary bond is given by a guarantor, the police issue clearance and permission is required from the district magistrate before it is granted.
It is a time-consuming and expensive process. Some of the problems related to procuring parole are listed below.
To avail parole, prisoners have to agree that on breach of the parole terms and conditions, the bond amount will be forfeited. The bond amount, incidentally, is not paid in cash. The bond process entails that the prisoner agrees to a certain amount of money and thereafter, gets a guarantor.

Guarantors Are Loan Sharks

A “guarantor” is a third-party individual, who stands guarantee for the prisoner (Chakraburtty 2017: 42) but does not pay the bond amount in cash.
He or she submits certain documents of assets owned, such as house registration or land registration documents as security or guarantee against the bond amount. In case of breach of parole terms and conditions (if the prisoner escapes or re-offends), the bond amount gets forfeited as a fine or disciplinary measure.
The presence of a guarantor is used as a pressure tactic on the prisoner since the former is expected to be a family member or a friend or fellow villager. Thus the prisoner is obliged to return to prison after the parole term is over and to maintain good conduct while s/he is out on parole.
However, not all prisoners own land or have individual or family assets. Thus more often than not, the guarantor is a man from the same village, who is a moneylender. This practice in the parole system creates loan sharks who exploit the prisoner’s vulnerability and poverty in a number of ways.
Not all prisoners have family members or family members who are willing to stand as a guarantor.

Open Prisons In India

Others do not have the property or financial wherewithal to stand as one. Some prisoners complained that they own small huts in a village, which is their only asset. The land and the clay hut combined does not amount to the₹50,000 that is required.
Others pointed out that since their family members have already used land and assets to take bank loans, these cannot be reused as bond guarantee. For a prisoner belonging to another state, the situation becomes more complex because s/he requires a guarantor from Rajasthan and not the home state because the prison administration does not have jurisdiction inanother state and in case of breach of parole no measures can be initiated against the guarantor.
Previously, prisoners from other states were not sent to stay in open prisons, for fear that in the absence of family or guarantor they would be more likely to escape. Starting with the past decade, however, prisoners belonging to other states are being sent to stay in open prisons.

Steep Bond Amount

To avail of parole a prisoner has to provide two bond amounts—one for himself and the other for the guarantor. The bond amount varies from district to district and is subject to the discretion of the district magistrate. In some districts the standard bond amount is as high as₹1,00,000.
Every 11th month from the last parole availed, the prisoner becomes eligible for another one. Some prisoners moved the high court complaining of the high bond amount and were granted relief but every prisoner cannot afford to move the high court once every year.
Other prisoners informed that they had stopped applying for parole after coming to an open prison. Going out on parole and the successful completion of multiple paroles, is usually seen as proof of improvement in the behavioural conduct of the prisoner and helps at the time of permanent parole and remission (sentence reduction).

Prison Reforms In India

Earlier, the Rajasthan prison rules also suggested that only on successful completion of three paroles, that is, 20 days in the first year, 30 days in the second year and 40 days in the third year, will the prisoner become eligible for permanent parole.
For prisoners staying in open prisons, three paroles are not mandatory to become eligible for permanent parole. However, due to differences of opinion among the decision-makers in the prison administration and members of the executive committee this new rule has not been put into practice.
However, subjecting prisoners to steep bond amounts along with getting guarantors goes against the principle of ensuring good conduct in prisoners.
Rather, it creates an atmosphere of discrimination within the psychosocial ecosystem of the prisoner population with the more privileged prisoners availing more number of paroles and becoming eligible for permanent parole and remission.

Police Report

The prisoners pointed out that the police often give negative reports, which ensure that their parole application gets rejected by the district or state parole committee. The prisoners feel that the police file such negative reports to evade conducting a fresh inquiry and update the records.
They also pointed out that when they became eligible for the first parole, almost all of them received negative police reports. It is an unwritten rule that the first police report is always a negative report and the police submit mechanical negative reports based on the crime that took place years ago and not on the conduct of the prisoner when the parole application is filed.
The above problems related to parole explain why inmates breach parole, that is, extend their stay at home. The number of parole breaches may be interpreted as an argument in defence of the open prison system too. The number of parole breaches indicates that though open prison is a system of minimal restraint imposed on the prisoner, they choose to stay out of it.
It is commonly argued that open prisons give liberty to inmates and there is negligible restriction imposed on the prisoner, so imprisonment in an open prison does not amount to punishment and the idea of justice is hurt from the perspective of the victim. But this desperation of the prisoner to stay out of open prison shows that it is a prison and psychologically does affect the sense of liberty.
Though this is a negative argument it may be used in defence of the open prison system, from the perspective of crime and punishment.
The following are the suggestions from the report to which the states have been told by the Supreme Court to submit their responses (Chakraburtty 2017: 27):
Open prisons are not resource-intensive and are cost-effective. Thus it is suggested that more open prisons be created across the state (country) to decrease the burden on the exchequer of the state. According to comparative data between Jaipur central jail and Sanganer Open Prison:

Alternatives To Traditional Prisons

Open prison requires only one prison staff per 80 prisoners.
Open prisons are 78 times cheaper than closed ones.
Cost per prisoner in Jaipur central jail is₹7,094 per month. Cost per prisoner in Sanganer Open Prison is₹500 per month.
Construction of a minimum of two new open prisons in every district:
An open prison can be constructed anywhere. It does not require huge campus area. Every closed prison can have an open prison built immediately next to its boundary wall. For example, the Alwar Open Prison, where a cluster of small quarters are built immediately outside the boundary wall of the closed prison.
It can be built as a prisoner village like that of the Sanganer Open Prison.
It can be built as a housing complex with each building of three or four floors. A prisoner family can be accommodated in a flat of 300 sq ft.
Open prisons can also be constructed in remote areas where a cluster of clay huts can be built on an agricultural land or a forest area, for example, the Jaitsar Open Prison. Prisoners’ labour may be utilised in agricultural or forest preservation work.
Open prisons can be started inside university campuses, where prisoners can stay with their families and work inside the campus like the Bikaner CRC.
More prisoners to be kept in open prisons: Prisoners eligible for stay in open prisons should not be restricted to the category of convicted prisoners. Undertrials too should be allowed into these prisons they are an experiment in minimal restraint.
It is a trust-based system built on the principle of self-governance and self-discipline, which is rehabilitative in nature. If this system is encouraged and expanded across the country it will have the potential to not only change the prison system but also have a significant impact on crime, recidivism, and eventually help eradicate retributive form of punishment.
Earlier, more often than not, harsh restrictions were imposed on prisoners like bar fetters and solitary confinement (till they were declared unconstitutional), not because they were pre-eminently necessary to maintain order and ensure security in jails but from a vague and unfounded fear of jail breaks and prisoners posing a threat to society in general.
The open prison experiment would give an opportunity in making a graded and progressive response to the extent of restraint and surveillance necessary to contain prisoners in an inclusive society.
Or in other words prisoners may, ordinarily in the first instance, be kept in open jails and only if they show tendencies towards violence or signs of plotting a jailbreak, they may be confined to more restrictive regimes of closed jail systems.
The case for undertrial prisoners stands on a better footing than for convicts, as the former are merely suspects who are incarcerated pending an investigation/trial.
Restrictions on this category of prisoners ought to be kept at a bare minimum, so that a fine balance may be struck between the fundamental right to liberty, presumption of innocence on the one hand and the requirement of fair and just investigation, protective rights and security of the victim and public interest on the other.
This goal can be best achieved in an open jail scenario as the very idea of staying under minimal restriction regime would have the least impact on the basic human rights of undertrials.
At present, only convicted prisoners are kept in open prisons. It is a common practice and belief that if undertrials are sent to open prison they will escape. However, prior to the setting up of open prisons prisoners were kept under severe restraint, in the belief that if they were left unchained and not put behind bars they would become violent and kill each other or escape.
When open prisons were started it was observed that prisoners did not escape even when they were kept in the open without any security barricades.
Similarly, if accused persons are aware of the possibility of being shifted to an open prison, there is a possibility of decrease in the number of absconding persons. Even if bail is not granted to undertrials (which would be the first priority), they are at least not put behind bars.

Reduction in Overcrowding

On an average, there are nearly 70% undertrial and 30% convicted prisoners. A lengthy trial is one of the reasons behind the huge population of undertrials in prison. More often than not, undertrials go through a long period of incarceration before being convicted.
Thus it would be humane to transfer the convicted prisoners to open prison. A reduction in the number of convicted prisoners from the closed prison will also lead to reduction in overcrowding.
Under the immediate context types of undertrial prisoners (UTP) recommended for stay in open prisons:
Woman UTP should be considered for stay in open prison to sustain ties with family and children:
pregnant woman prisoners,
women with young children,
women with disabilities, and
aged prisoners.
Aged and physically infirm prisoners (male/female) should be allowed to stay in an open prison so that they can avail of the care and support of their family members.
Nature of offence:
onetime offence,
accidental offence,
petty offence, and
low risk prisoner.
Accused persons who have surrendered in court or police station and courted imprisonment.
Cases of prisoners undergoing extradition requests. In cases of persons undergoing extradition trial in countries India has signed extradition treaty with the suggestion of keeping the accused in an open prison. (The United Kingdom governemnt rejected two extradition appeals due to poor conditions prevalent in Indian prisons.)

India’s Open Prison Model

Equal pay for equal work: Prisoners face an endemic problem of being paid lower wages compared to other workers for the same work. Be it in a gaushala or a farm, the pay/wages situation remains the same. The reason for paying the prisoner less as per some members of the institutions is that, since they are provided housing they are paid less.
A prisoner has to stay in the open prison because of legal compulsions. Imprisonment is imposed by the law. To deduct rent from the stay in prison from the wages of a prisoner is a form of exploitation.
The prisoners must be paid equal wages for equal work. And in case the institution only employs prisoners, then it should maintain standard sector rate for their wages, which should not be below the minimum wages standardised by government.
Access to legal aid: Though presently only convicted prisoners stay in open prisons they require legal services related to parole rejection, higher bond amount, transfer to another state or another district and similar such issues. Thus it is suggested that legal aid clinics be set up even in open prisons.
Access to health facilities: Health camps should be arranged in open prisons.
Prisoners often face discrimination when it comes to work and remuneration. Also, the prison superintendents should speak to employers and negotiate work shift timings because prisoners have to return to prison before the evening roll call.
Prisoners should be allowed to choose the kind of work. They should be kept in open prisons in areas where there are avenues to utilise their skills.
Prisoners should be kept in their home districts.

Relevance of Open Prisons

According to R K Saxena (Chakraburtty 2017: 1), the Rajasthan open prisons are so in the true sense of the term. The first open prison in Rajasthan was set up in Durgapura near Jaipur city, around 1954–55. Prisoners were allowed to stay with family members and allowed choice of work.
If the purpose of incarceration is to prepare an inmate for social reintegration and social readjustment it would be wrong to cut him off from society for long. One of the prerequisites of social reintegration is the continued interaction between the prisoner and society.
There are two ways of maintaining social interaction. One, by allowing the society to come inside prisons and two, by allowing prisoners to go outside the prison. Open prisons provide for this kind of social interaction between the prisoner and society.
Closed or traditional prisons have high security, yet prisoners escape. But that does not prompt the administration to shut them down. Prisoners staying in open prisons know that escaping from there would mean that if they are rearrested, they would be sent back to a closed prison. The fear of this prevents them from trying to escape.
Prisoners in open prisons had maintained a fairly good conduct while they were in the closed ones no matter what their offence was. Thus it was rare that a prisoner would escape from an open prison. Ajit Singh, a former director general of police (DGP) of Rajasthan, observes:
Contrary to common belief prisoners are not a homogeneous group of violent and hardened criminals. To understand a prisoner, it is important to learn about his family, the circumstances of the offence, whether the offence was planned, accidental, whether committed by a onetime offender or by a hardened habitual offender. (Chakraburtty 2017: 4)
Those unfamiliar with the system (Open Prison), may presume that such a system would give rise to prison escapes. The data, however, does not corroborate this fear. There is a general acceptance of the Open Prison Rules among the prisoners.

India’s Open Prison Model

A prisoner allowed the extent of liberty that comes with being in an Open Prison would not normally want to lose it and be a fugitive again. Escape would imply re-arrest and then face life back in confinement of a traditional prison. Thus prison escapes are rare when it comes to Open Prison.
I was commissioned to inspect all the prisons of Bihar (Chakraburtty 2015a) and visited all the 58 prisons there and also interacted with 30,070 prisoners (on record) (Chakraburtty 2015b).
After witnessing the horror behind bars in the closed prisons, the open prison system of Rajasthan seemed unreal. It is difficult to believe that such an alternative imprisonment system has existed in the country for decades, yet it was not emulated elsewhere in the country.

Prison Reforms In India

The Rajasthan open prison system is a successful and sustainable alternative to the existing closed prison system. It is cost-effective, leads to social reintegration of the prisoners, reduction in prison over-crowding, the rate of recidivism is negligible and most importantly, it is a humane system, which upholds the right to life and dignity of the prisoner.
It is also unfortunate that such a unique and successful prison system has been subjected to neglect in its home state. The Rajasthan open prison model and parole system should be expanded and implemented across the country.
There is no logical explanation to continuing a closed prison system that is not only inhuman but also expensive. Funds with the public exchequer should be utilised to combat problems of malnutrition, public health, primary education and not be exhausted over perceived sense of crime and punishment.
Open prisons must become the norm and the closed prison must remain a rare exception.