Wednesday | 11 December 2024 | Reg No- 06
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Wednesday | 11 December 2024 | Epaper
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Our prisoners deserve proper treatment for mental, ethical reforms 

Published : Monday, 4 November, 2024 at 12:00 AM  Count : 333
Tareq Abedin Siraji
Imprisonment is the most used punishment procedure in the Bangladesh criminal justice system. It has been observed that there are enormous cases in Bangladesh where an offender, upon spending a great deal of time behind bars, is released and somehow again ends up in jail for some subsequent offense. All this precious time is being spent behind bars as the intent of such former punishment was to reform them and enable them to return to society as law-abiding citizens. This behavior of reoffending by criminals is known as recidivism.

Among the South Asian Countries, the recidivism rate of prisoners in Bangladesh was 44% in 2012, 42% in 2014, and 45% in 2016, and according to the new report of the World Prison Brief, it is now 52%. However, the percentage of the total population rate in prison was 61.1% in 2003, 73.2% in 2010, 73.8% in 2015, and 75.6% in 2022. As a result, the number of prisoners in Bangladesh is rising daily, which is a challenge to us and a pressing issue for our nation.

Prison is seen as a way to gain retribution rather than as a means to change the inmate's behavior toward society. The prison system, failing to be the reformation modem of society being plagued by various problems, gradually falls into the vicious circle of being overcrowded by the offenders. Recidivist offenders in Bangladesh may indicate a fresh route or reveal an unexplored aspect of causes influencing criminal activity. 

The number of reported crime cases in Bangladesh significantly increased from 2004 to 2008, and the Bangladesh police have warned that this trend may continue. The rate of crime, as measured by the number of registered cases, is increasing significantly every five years. Specifically, cruelty to women accounts for 10% of cases, narcotics for 64%, smuggling for 41%, theft for 5%, and murder for 5%.

Prison shall be a shrine of reformation, which should reform the prisoners to the greatest extent possible to help them become law-abiding citizens. This process highly depends on the circumstances prisoners must live and continue to face. The prison system of Bangladesh is overwhelmed with various problems hindering the surety of the prisoner's right to life and dignity.Even though our nation has a total of 68 prisons, there are a total of around 80,000 prisoners spread across the remaining 68 prisons. Meanwhile, the maximum population capacity of the jails in Bangladesh is around 43,000.About 76% of the total prisoners, or 67,000, await trial.


There are many major challenges relating to the reform, namely Overcrowding and Infrastructure Deficiencies, Inadequate Legal and Policy Framework, Social Stigma and Discrimination, Corruption and Mismanagement, Training and Assistance of Personnel in Prisons, and most importantly, lack of Public and Political Will for Reform.

Some recommendations can be followed to Reform, give prisoners a better life, and be one among us. The firstmodel that perhaps Bangladesh could look at is the United Kingdom's Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This law allows certain convictions to be ignored after a particular rehabilitation period, enabling individuals to move on with life without constantly being weighed down by a criminal conviction for minor offenses

The next most important measure to adopt is that the government should work with employers to establish incentives for hiring individuals who have served their rehabilitation period. The government can develop tax breaks, grants, or other recognition programs to assist businesses in giving chances to former inmates serving out their parole. Vocational Training would entail extending vocational training in prisons to impart skills relevant to currently needed occupations, which will help inmates find jobs upon their release.

Successful rehabilitation has an impact that goes well beyond the prison walls because it gives prisoners the chance to start over-not as a continuation of their mistakes, but as a promising new chapter in their lives. This metamorphosis affects the person who was incarcerated as well as their family, community, and society at large.

The writer is a LL.B. Student, Department of Law, World University of Bangladesh



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