PRIORITY AREA
Governance and Local Development Improvement of the Real Situation of Overcrowding in Prisons in Bangladesh
Reducing Overcrowding in Bangladesh’s Prisons
At the heart of the project is a cadre of paralegals who have been trained to work as a bridge between prisoners and the courts, prisons, police, and the legal profession.
A senior official in the Ministry of Home Affairs, who today oversees the development activities of Bangladesh’s 68 prisons, knew what the prisons were like already during his university days. “As a student activist, there was only one thing I was afraid of,” he recalls, “and that was being put in jail. Everybody knew how dangerous the prisons were. It was my nightmare.” Today, this official knows a lot more about the difficulties that prisons face. Bangladesh’s prisons are hopelessly overcrowded: they house around 70,000 people in facilities designed for only 30,610. The situation in several individual prisons is far worse: Dhaka Central Jail, for example, holds around 10,000 prisoners in a facility designed for 2700, including around 600 women in a space designed for 134. The prisons are attempting to deal with a problem that is not of their making. Too many people are arrested; too few are granted bail. Investigations and courts procedures take too much time, and most prisoners have no access to legal aid. Two-thirds of Bangladesh’s prisoners are awaiting trial – meaning that they are legally innocent –
and many will stay in prison for far longer than the sentence they would have served if they had been convicted of their crime. Women and girls are detained in prison under “safe custody,” simply because Bangladesh social services have no facilities in which to protect them from abusive situations. Juveniles are incarcerated alongside adults, although the law strictly forbids this. The massive overcrowding makes it impossible for Bangladesh’s prisons to provide prisoners with UN defined minimum standards for adequate light, air, decency, and privacy. Not only do prisoners in some of Bangladesh’s jails have to wait their turn to sleep, but such overcrowding creates ideal breeding ground for violence, crime, and the explosion of diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. There is little scope for retraining and rehabilitation. Leading Bangladeshi legal experts have long been concerned with the violations of human rights that occur when people, especially poor people – who are by
GIZ in Bangladesh | Improvement of the Real Situation of Overcrowding in Prisons in Bangladesh
far the majority of prisoners – get entangled in the penal system. Already in 1980, the Bangladesh Jail Commission Report, under the chairmanship of Justice Munim, noted that “building more prisons cannot be expected to reduce overcrowding inside the prisons” and called for alternatives such as adequate use of bail, probation, community service, and other measures. In 2008, the Bangladesh Ministry of Home Affairs and the Prison Directorate initiated a project that brings together all involved parties – the police, the courts, the prisons, social services, and the ministry – to effect significant and permanent Improvement of the Real Situation of Overcrowding in Prisons in Bangladesh. The project is being supported by the German Government through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and by the Spanish Government.
Paralegals dismantle the blockages in the criminal justice process At the heart of the project is a cadre of paralegals who have been trained to work as a bridge between prisoners and the courts, prisons, police, and the legal profession.1 Paralegals are not lawyers; they serve as the paramedics of the criminal justice system, providing free legal aid to prisoners and their families, while also assisting lawyers, the police, and the courts.
Shuvo: An innocent minor recovers his freedom On 16 July 2010, while Shuvo (12) was returning home from school, the police caught him with a bag of yaba (methamphetamine pills), which his neighbor Tina had given him a few minutes earlier. Although Shuvo had no idea what Tina had given him, both Shuvo and Tina were arrested. Shuvo was brought to the Juvenile Development Center. His poor family had no money for legal representation, but the paralegals passed his case to a panel lawyer of BRAC. Although the court denied bail three times, the lawyer persisted and finally Shuvo was released on 22 December 2010 against a bail bond of BDT 5000. The project arranged for Shuvo to be trained as a tailor; today he is helping to support his family.
In this way, paralegals have so far been able to obtain the release of around 2000 prisoners who should not have been in prison (see box). Furthermore, in both Bogra and Madaripur District Prisons, there are no longer any prisoners under 18 or women in safe custody, and all prisoners now have set court dates.
The paralegals trained by the project are working in five pilot districts of Bangladesh. The training is carried out by judges, magistrates, police and prison officials, and lawyers. Three non-governmental organizations– BRAC, Bangladesh Legal Aid & Services Trust (BLAST), and Madaripur Legal Aid Association (MLAA)– provide support services to the paralegals.
Paralegals hold Paralegal Aid Clinics to educate prisoners on basic legal procedures, from arrest to appeal, so that prisoners can apply the criminal law and procedures in their own cases if they lack the means to engage a lawyer. Paralegals also attempt to locate the prisoner’s family or contact his embassy.
Paralegals gather information on the legal status of prisoners and then present this information to a judge or lawyer and request the appropriate action. The data is also given to the Case Coordination Committees, headed by the District Judge and the Deputy Commissioner in each of the pilot areas, which meet monthly to discuss local problems and find local solutions, resolve long pending cases expeditiously, tackle the case backlog, and monitor the progress of the pilot scheme.
Paralegals are bound by a very strict code of conduct agreed with prison authorities. For instance, since lawyer-client privileges do not attach to them, paralegals conduct all their activities and interactions with prisoners within the full sight and hearing of prison officers; they do not contact the media without the approval of the prison authorities; they quit the premises immediately on the order of a prison officer; and so on. Any breach of the code results in dismissal.
1.
In Malawi, where it was created in 2000, the Paralegal Advisory Service has reduced the under-trial population from 45% to 17.5%, one of the lowest rates in Africa today. Furthermore, 77% of detained juveniles are now diverted out of the criminal justice systemat the police station. The program has been successfully replicated in Benin (2002), Kenya (2004), Uganda (2005), and Niger (2006).
Improvement of the Real Situation of Overcrowding in Prisons in Bangladesh | GIZ in Bangladesh
In police stations, paralegals provide support to arrestees, helping them to understand the procedures and their options. They trace family members, so that juveniles can be diverted out of the criminal justice system. Outside the courts, they inform prisoners and family members of the court setup and procedures, and refer appropriate cases to lawyers. They assist members of the public, witnesses, and accused persons who are not represented by a lawyer. They follow up individual cases from the prisons and police stations.
Penal reform initiatives
prisoners, 2) buildings and infrastructure, 3) staff, and 4) systems. Overcrowding in prisons, prison legislation, and legal aid services in the criminal justice system were also the topics of a regional conference held at the Police Staff College in Mirpur, Dhaka on 6-7 October 2010. The conference, jointly hosted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, BRAC, BLAST, MLAA, and GIZ, was opened by both the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs.
In parallel to the activities at the pilot prisons, the project's Advisory Committee has held ongoing policy discussions with government institutions, such as the Home Ministry, the Ministry of Law, Justice, and Parliamentary Affairs, the Law Commission, and the Prison Directorate. A number of important policy initiatives have resulted.
The keynote speaker was Kiran Bedi, the legendary prison reformer, who discussed the reforms she carried out at the Tihar Jail in India while working there as the Inspector General. The 107 participants from five South Asian countries unanimously adopted the Dhaka Declaration on Reducing Overcrowding in Prisons in South Asia, which was forwarded to national governments in the region and to the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
For the first time ever, the Prison Directorate, with the support of the project and participation of a wide spectrum of stakeholders, developed a strategic five-year plan. The strategic plan, which will enable the Prison Directorate to allocate resources toward the most pressing needs it faces in a systematic and structured manner, identifies four main priorities to be addressed: 1)
A group of officials from several ministries, the Prison Directorate, and the Bangladesh Police undertook a number of visits abroad to observe first-hand how other countries organize their prison systems. According to one member of the mission, the trip to England was a revelation: “It never occurred to us that
Overcrowding in prisons, prison legislation, and legal aid services in the criminal justice system were among the topics discussed during a regional conference jointly hosted by the Ministry of Home Affairs, BRAC, BLAST, MLAA, and GIZ.
GIZ in Bangladesh | Improvement of the Real Situation of Overcrowding in Prisons in Bangladesh
first-time offenders did not need to be treated like criminals or that classifying our prisons as high, medium, or low security might be more efficient.� The project supported drafting of a new prisons act in 2011. The draft act, which conforms to international standards governing the management of prisons and treatment of prisoners, represents a major change from the present jail code, which was written in 1864. The draft has a number of key policy implications: it establishes a civilian Prison Service and staff and calls for appropriate classification of prisoners and a mechanism whereby prisoners can progress from a highly secure, closed environment to a minimum security prison. It also establishes an independent inspection mechanism.
Development Cooperation (AECID), is supporting examination of issues of access to justice for poor women, who, in most cases, end up in jail either for petty crimes or on murder charges. In the latter case, many of these women were victims of years of domestic violence. The project is working with community policing forums to design community-based prevention measures that support released offenders who are in danger of (re)offending and ex-offenders who are released back into their communities and seeking to rebuild their lives. At the same time, skills development for prisoners inside the prisons allows the poor to develop a livelihood, so that they do not resort to petty crime for survival after their release.
Starting in 2012, a new contribution to the project, funded by the Spanish Agency for International
The project is also working with community policing forums to design community-based prevention measures that support women who are in danger of (re)offending and women offenders who are released back into their communities and seeking to rebuild their lives.
Contact: Deputy Chief, Planning Wing, Ministry of Home Affairs or Ms. Promita Sengupta - promita.sengupta@giz.de
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