Govt moves to release life-term prisoners to make room

The government has taken an initiative to release prisoners who were sentenced to life term and have already served 20 years in prison in order to reduce pressure on the stifling space in the 67 jails across the country.
Some prisoners who have been in jail for petty crimes, including theft and pick pocketing, would also be released to make room for the growing number of prisoners.
The inspector general (prisons), Brigadier General Ashraful Islam Khan, in the past week told New Age, ‘The government has taken an initiative to release, following due process of law, the prisoners sentences to life imprisonment who have already completed 20 years in jail to reduce pressure on jails.’
‘We have discussed the matter with the home ministry and the law ministry and they have agreed to do so,’ he said.
He, however, said the government would not release the prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment who are marked top criminals in police list, even if they have spent 20 years in jail.
‘Jails across the country are jam-packed with prisoners three times their accommodation capacity,’ he said.
The registered capacity of the 67 jails across the country, including 11 central jails, is 27,000 but all the jails now hold over 86,600 inmates, said sources in the prison directorate.
The Dhaka Central Jail has the registered capacity of putting up 2,682 prisoners. But there are some 10,352 prisoners in the jail at the moment, which is nearly four times higher than its capacity.
‘There are 2,805 prisoners in Meghna and Surma cells, 1,359 in Meghna and 1,446 in Surma cells in the Dhaka central jail,’ said a official in the jail authority.
Some 548 women prisoners along with 82 children under six years have been detained in the women’s ward of the Dhaka central jail, although its registered capacity is 134. The women’s ward is overcrowded with six times more inmates than its capacity.
Due to overcrowding in the jails, the authorities as well as the prisoners have to face innumerable problems, jail official said.
The prisoners have to sleep by turns. They have to face bathroom and latrine problems while water crisis in the jail has been perennial in all the jails.
The jail authorities quite often face the problem of load-shedding and power failures. They have to cope with the challenge of keeping the jail life functional with limited manpower as there are only 7,500 jail guards for the 67 jails to mind the 86,000 prisoners.
The inspector general (prisons) said the government would build jails in Keraniganj, Madaripur, Sylhet and Bogra to reduce pressure on the jails.
‘The government is also constructing some extended buildings in some six jails, including Bogra, Dinajpur, Dhaka and in three other districts to increase the capacity of the jails,’ he said.
‘The initiative will help ease the situation in the overcrowded jails,’ he added.
The government has already built three jails in Bagherhat, Brahmanbaria and Sirajganj in 2009 to accommodate 500 more prisoners.

Courtesy of NewAgebd