Dr. Hira Singh
International Director
Asia Crime Prevention Foundation
Though, at the conceptual level, the reformation and rehabilitation of offenders has long been accepted as the ultimate goal of correctional administration, the efficacy of the system in realizing this objective is currently being debated in various quarters. In fact, the phenomenon of crime which is the focal point of any correctional endeavour has baffled humankind down the ages. Even while it is widely perceived as a by-product of the disorganisational process of society itself, crime is taken cognizance of only when it comes to the surface. As a form of human behaviour which is a consequence of the interaction that takes place between the individual and the environment he is exposed to, the understanding of crime becomes highly problematic when both these aspects are found to be constantly changing and dynamic in nature. Thus, in the absence of any foolproof theory of crime causation, it is difficult to visualize a correctional strategy to be equally effective in every situation. Despite this position, once an individual is identified as offender and comes within the purview of the system created to deal with him, there is no option but to treat him in a manner that helps him to refrain from further crime and to rehabilitate himself as a law-abiding citizen. Therefore, irrespective of various limitations and constraints, corrections will have to be pursued and developed as the central theme of any penal approach.
2. The erosion of public confidence in corrections as an essential component of the criminal justice system arises mainly from the fact that in performing the envisaged rehabilitative functions, it is often confronted with such crimogenic conditions as are beyond its reach. In developing countries, a chunk of population continues to be denied of an equitable sharing of socio-cultural and economic opportunities for a life compatible with human dignity. Accent on economic growth, without due regard to social development, alienates the poor, the weaker and the disadvantaged from the mainstream of social life. While poverty per se cannot be taken as a cause of crime, people in situations of deprivation, destitution and neglect are more likely to be rendered vulnerable to social maladjustment and conflict with law. In developed countries, an unprecedented affluence, materialism and consumerism has, in its wake, produced several new forms and patterns of an aberrant life style. With an increasing pace of globalisation, crime is no more merely a domestic issue of a particular country; it is fast assuming a transnational and international dimension, perpetrated by highly organized and powerful syndicates operating across national borders. So, apart from the complexity of human behaviour associated with crime, the inadequacy of correctional system to address such trends of criminality as are much more volitional and socially disruptive than known hitherto seems to be an important factor in the prevailing disenchantment about its rehabilitative role.
3. In the backdrop of a rapidly changing crime scenario, any action to enhance the rehabilitative functions of corrections has to start with the rationalization of sentencing policy. The criminal justice system, in consonance with its universally cherished tenets, has to be equally fair and equitable to the poor as to the rich, in actual operation. The range of dispositional alternatives has to be so widened as to enable the court to place a person found guilty in a setting which is most conducive to his correctional treatment. The procedure to be adopted by the court has to be streamlined so that a decision is arrived at not only in relation to the crime committed but also on the basis of a thorough study of the personality and background of the person involved and the circumstances in which the crime occurred. Institutional treatment has to be resorted to as the last measure, only when an offender poses a real threat to public peace and tranquility. A community-based option for treatment has also to based on scientifically tested and verifiable criteria. It has to be fully appreciated that an offender placed on community correction will have a much greater stake in social conformity than the one being treated in a closed institution as a 'social misfit'. Even a non- institutional placement has to be carefully selected so as to retain, to the maximum extent possible, the usefulness of the offender to himself, his family and society. In order to ensure that the sentence is delivered in a fair, just and equitable manner, irrespective of the socio-economic status of the person involved, the state has to stand for those who cannot protect their substantive and procedural rights.
4. Prisons constitute the oldest and most widely used area of correctional
administration. It has also been a subject of severe criticism and scrutiny from the viewpoint of its rehabilitative value, in many countries. It is well recognized that as long as certain types of offenders are required to be segregated from society in the interest of public safety, and are expected to return as better human beings than what they were when incarcerated, the therapeutic role of prisons could not be undermined. However, there are several problems that prison administration is presently confronted with in functioning as a correctional device. In many parts of the world, imprisonment continues to be applied indiscriminately and excessively, either as a convenient way of dealing with all sorts of crime situations or because of the non-availability or limited range of effective alternatives. In the face of competing priorities, developing countries are still struggling to mobilize enough resources to bring in the desired systemic reforms in terms of the necessary infrastructure, a scientific classification of inmates, a diversified institutional framework for various categories of offenders, an adequate provision of correctional services and a duly qualified and professionally trained personnel to handle various tasks. In most of the countries, appropriate linkages between institutional programmes and community-based welfare resources are yet to be established to ensure that the processes of recovery, reeducation and rehabilitation initiated in prisons are systematically followed up till the discharged prisoners are able to reintegrate themselves into society.5. Apart from an urgent need to bridge the gap that exists between rhetoric and
reality, there is now a candid awareness that the rehabilitative function of prison administration can be accomplished only in an atmosphere that fosters human rights of persons in custody and generates among them a will to improve their quality of life. In this respect, the Supreme Court of India, discarding its erstwhile "hands off" doctrine in favour of a judicial intervention when the rights of prisoners are found in jeopardy, has enunciated three basic principles: (1) a person in custody does not become a 'non person'; (ii) a prisoner is entitled to all human rights within the limitations of imprisonment; and(iii) there is no justification for aggravating the suffering already inherent in the process of incarceration. The apex court has issued a number of directives for prison authorities to ascertain that prisoners are afforded all such facilities for self-improvement and correctional therapy as are consistent with the conditions of imprisonment. Besides an enlightened interpretation of the relevant Constitutional provisions, the principles embodied in various international instruments formulated by United Nations in this field have repeatedly been drawn upon. The theoretical framework evolved by the Supreme Court of India to protect the rights and interests of prisoners has a global appeal.
6. The current emphasis on a progressive humanization of prisons as an essential condition for enhancing the rehabilitative functions of corrections in custodial setting brings to the fore the issue of torture. Despite a high level of denial among the concerned authorities, torture does exist in prisons broadly in three ways. First, there is a form of torture deliberately inflicted to 'discipline' a prisoner or to 'set him right' against all canons of rules and regulations. It may be sporadic in nature but does take place when the custodian under pressure loses his balance and the prisoner is entirety at his mercy. No civilized society would ever condone such a torture. Secondly, there is torture that occurs as a consequence of the sub-human conditions prevailing in prisons, especially in developing countries. Such consequential torture has to be prevented by adhering to certain minimum standards of institutional care in terms of living conditions, basic needs and amenities and privileges. And, thirdly, there is an element of torture inherent in imprisonment itself when the individual involved is deprived of his freedom and isolated from his kith and kin and the community he belongs to. This form of torture can also be considerably reduced, if not eliminated altogether, by resorting to prisons more selectively, only when the offender endangers public safety, by enlarging the range of alternatives to imprisonment, and, even when a offender is justifiably imprisoned, by providing him with ample avenues to maintain ties with outside world and possibility for an early release as an incentive for good behaviour and responsiveness to correctional treatment.7. In India, as in other developing countries, where most of the persons coming
within the purview of the criminal justice system are involved in crime under various kinds of situational compulsions, correctional approach to crime control has to be pursued as an integral part of the development process. A large segment of prison population consists of the poor, the illiterate and the unskilled. These people are indeed victimized twice, once when they are denied of their basic human needs in open society and rendered prone to social maladjustment, deviance and crime, and, again, when they are grinded in the mill of criminal justice. An investment on the provision of correctional services in relation to such persons is not only productive but also conducive to improving the quality of life among the strata they come from and have ultimately to return to. In this respect, a priority attention needs to be given to raising the standards of educational and vocational training programmes with all the necessary technical inputs, in close conjunction with community-based specialized agencies. There is no dearth of success stories in this regard but most of these have so far been confined to a few countries or to some individual initiatives . It is high time that correctional measures are increasingly geared towards enhancing the caliber, competence and skills of institutionalized offenders so as to determine that, after release, they are able to stand on their own as dignified and law-abiding citizens.8. Similarly, in the treatment of juvenile delinquency, the rehabilitative functions of corrections have to be strengthened, reinforced and refined on sound scientific lines. It is well realized that children coming in confrontation with law, because of their physical, emotional and mental immaturity, cannot be equated with adults in terms of their culpability and accountability to crime. It is widely held that delinquency is not merely an act of social deviance on the part of a child but also a symptom of the failure of society to bring him up as a wholesome individual. At the same time, no society takes crime, even if it is committed by a juvenile, as entirely value-free and expects it to be effectively tackled. There is, however, a unanimous view that penal approach towards juvenile offenders must be differentiated and juvenile delinquency be dealt with on its growth continuum by responding to all such problems as are associated with it. Thus, the correctional treatment of a juvenile delinquent has to be thought of in the totality of his life situations. In this regard, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice surely provide for an ideal blue-print to be acted upon at the national level. In enhancing the rehabilitative role of corrections in juvenile justice, a concerted action is required to be taken for forging linkages with various social support systems, including the family, the community and the school, and for the convergence of welfare resources from various sectors of socio-economic development.
9. Significantly, the United Nations rules for juvenile justice incorporate some
salutary provisions for correctional inputs at various stages of the passage of juvenile offenders through the system. At the very beginning, the police, the prosecution and other concerned agencies are proposed to be empowered with discretion to divert cases from
the formal system to appropriate community services, including supervision and guidance, restitution, and compensation of victims. A variety of disposition measures are
contemplated, including: care, guidance and supervision orders; probation; community service orders; financial penalties, compensation and restitution; intermediate treatment and other treatment orders, orders to participate in group counselling and similar activities; orders concerning foster care, living communities or other educational settings or other relevant orders. While institutionalization is thought to be a disposition of last resort, non-institutional treatment has to provide juveniles with necessary assistance, including education and vocational training in order to facilitate the rehabilitative process, and to mobilize volunteers and other community welfare resources for rehabilitation. When a juvenile undergoes institutional treatment, early recourse to conditional release under proper supervision and community support has been envisaged. A provision for semi-institutional arrangements such as half-way houses, educational homes, day-time training centers, etc., has also been made to assist juvenile to reintegrate into society.10. Whereas the rationale behind the segregation from society of certain types of offenders in the public interest and their treatment in closed institutions is firmly established, the correctional potential of non-custodial treatment has yet to be fully explored in most of the countries in this region. Though probation as a form of non-institutional treatment of offenders under conditions of good behaviour, with or without supervision, has been in practice for long, not all the countries have been able to create a sound basis for its application in an extensive manner. Due to financial and organizational constraints, community service has yet to receive a fair trial. In fact, for want of scientifically evolved criteria to be relied upon in the placement of offenders in non-institutional setting, the range of community corrections remains limited and imprisonment continues to be followed as the safest course, even for persons involved in petty crimes, who are no danger to public safety or whose institutionalization for short periods has no therapeutic value. On the other hand, if non-custodial correctional measures are used arbitrarily, without being selected on objective grounds, there is a definite risk of men of means taking undue advantage and abusing the system, as against those who would really deserve but have no advocacy, and the whole approach becoming counter-productive and coming into public disrepute. It is, therefore, imperative that community correction presents its credentials to function, if not more, as effectively as custodial correction, in rehabilitating offenders.
11. The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-Custodial Measures are intended to ensure a proper balance between the interests of the individuals involved in crime and those of society at various stages of the criminal justice process. In keeping with the principles of the observance of human rights, the requirements of social justice and rehabilitation needs of offenders, the rules spell out a wide range of disposition modalities at the pr-trial, sentencing and post-sentencing stages. Apart from empowering the police and prosecution agencies to discharge offenders on justifiable grounds, the suggested sentencing alternatives include: verbal sanctions, such as admonition, reprimand and warning; conditional discharge; status penalties, economic sanctions and monetary penalties; confiscation or an expropriation order; restitution to the victim or a compensation order; suspended or deferred sentence; probation and judicial supervision; a community service order; referral to an attendence center; house arrest; and any other
mode of non-institutional treatment or combination of various measures. With a view to avoiding institutionalization and to secure early reintegration of offenders into society, the post-sentencing dispositions to be tried out are: furlough and half-way houses; work or education release ; parole; remission and pardon. Obviously , the implementation of such non-custodial measures is dependent on the development of scientific criteria for selection, placement and supervision of cases, treatment processes, staffing resources, community participation, etc. However, all these approaches are worth experimenting with in assessing their suitability in indigenous conditions and in enhancing the rehabilitative functions of corrections in most effective ways.12. In this context, one has to understand that corrections as a formal system, even at its best, will always have a limited reach in reintegrating offenders into society. While it is legitimately concerned with the mainstreaming of erring individuals, it cannot by itself undo the aberrations of the wider socio-economic and political systems that may also be contributing to crime. Nevertheless, it certainly plays an important role in helping offenders to reorganize themselves and to revive their strength to withstand and to overcome factors responsible for deviant behaviour. If the reformation and rehabilitation of offenders is the only logical goal of any penal policy, correction has to be recongnised and developed as the underlying spirit behind all the measures initiated for the purpose. There is no dearth of thinking on the problems and perspectives of corrections in the modern world. The United Nations standards, norms and guidelines clearly set the direction to move. What is needed most is a coherent action toward translating the principles adopted at the international level into concrete practices at the national level. Of course, the upgradation of corrections as a rehabilitative device would necessitate not only a massive drive towards public awareness and resource mobilization but also a considerable amount of professional inputs by way of research, training and programme development. ACPF, which enjoys a tremendous public confidence across countries and regions and also functions as a think-tank for United Nations activities in crime prevention and criminal justice, is ideally placed to serve as a catalyst for a sustained action.
