967 Words Essay on Prison labour

Assigning work to inmates in correctional institutions is considered today a major issue. Work is necessary for keeping inmates engaged to contain their idleness and reduce their unrest and disciplinary problems, for removing their monotony and improving their morale, for assigning such hard labour to them which may deter them from repeatedly indulging in crime.

For teaching them some useful trade which may help them to become self-supporting after release from prison, for enabling them to earn and get some extra facilities for themselves in jails and also for sending some money to their families to support their children, and for reducing the operating cost of maintaining jails.

Thus, the basic objective of prison labour is neither to be punitive nor to make jails self-sufficient but to keep prisoners engaged.

The tasks assigned to prison inmates till a few decades back were generally unproductive. Besides, a large number of inmates remained entirely unemployed. Even today, no work is assigned to the under trials and prisoners of ‘A’ class.

In all, six systems of prison labour have been identified which prevailed/prevail in different parts of the world. These systems are: the lease system, the contract system, the piece price system, the state use system, the state account system and the public works system.

The first three are private systems while the last three are public systems. In India, only the last three public systems of prison labour are prevalent at present.

Under the lease system, prisoners were turned over to a lessee who ^agreed to house, clothe, feed, and guard them and pay to the state a stipulated amount of money for each prisoner received.

In return, he had the right to assign work of his choice to prisoners and to keep the products of their labour. Tales of ruthless exploitation and cruel treatment of prisoners aroused public indignation to such an extent that

Under the contract system, a private individual or a company entered into a contract with the penal institution for the labour of prisoners at a stipulated amount per prisoner per day. The contractor/industrialist/ ‘ merchant furnished raw materials, tools and machinery and inspectors to guide the production.

In return, the penal institution supplies food and clothes to prisoners and also disciplined them. In this system, the industrialist found cheap labour, the state, a source of easy revenue, and the public low-priced articles.

However, this system was also open to such serious abuses and corrupt practices among prison officials that strong public opinion was organised against it and it was totally abolished.

The piece price system was almost the same as the contract system, with the difference that in this system the contractor, instead of paying a stipulated amount per prisoner per day, furnished raw material, machinery and tools and paid a specified price per piece for the finished product.

This system thus gave the state complete control over prisoners and their employment. It also did not permit the contractor to come into direct contact with prisoners and use their labour entirely for his own selfish interests.

However, this system also did not escape public debate/controversy against it because of possible collusion between the contractor and the prison authorities. As such, this system was also abolished.

Under the state account (or also called the public account) system, inmates manufacture various commodities in the institution and the products are sold in the open market in competition with the goods produced by free labour. The state thus earns profit (or incurs loss) and exercises complete control over the inmates as well as the entire business.

This system is prevalent in India even today and things like carpets, niwar, furniture, durries, flower-pots, cane baskets, etc. are sold by prisons in the open market. But the system has not picked up much owing to small demand for prison-made goods, poor quality of the goocL produced, introduction of machinery in private industry, and lack of capital and transportation facilities.

Under the state use system, the state supplies products of prisoners to public institutions and agencies (like the police, schools, post-office government offices, and so forth). This practice of restricting the mark avoids direct competition with private enterprise and free labour while utilising prison labour for the benefit of the public.

Under the public works system, the services of prisoners are used for constructing dams, digging canals, cultivating land, and so forth. The prisoners are paid the same wages as are paid to free labour. However, the prisoners have to arrange for their own food out of the wages earned by them.

The state account and the state use systems are the two systems which are usually adopted by prisons in India. The training “given and the work assigned to inmates in prisons can be classified into five major groups: textiles and subsidiary, carpentry, leather work, blacksmithy, and producing soap, rope, etc. It is estimated that no more than 30 to 35 per cent of prisoners are engaged in productive work.

Of these, more than 50 per cent are engaged in durrie-making, 25 per cent in handloom textiles, and the remaining 25 per cent in other tasks (like carpentry, tailoring, black-smithy, etc.).

A majority of the workers (about 80%) feel dissatisfied with the work assigned to them. It is, therefore, necessary that before assigning work to prisoners, the authorities concerned must examine: (i) the effect of work on the health of prisoners, (ii) effect of work on reformation and value-changes, (iii) economic benefit to the state, (iv) effect on administration’s efficiency, (v) competition with market, and (vi) market demand. Besides these considerations, other factors which can be given importance in assigning work could be term of prisoner’s imprisonment, his age, education and previous training, the nature of crime, economic benefit to the prisoner, and the rehabilitative value of the work assigned.