The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found that Meghalaya houses young offenders with other inmates.

In the report on general, social and economic sectors for the year ended March 31, 2018, the CAG noted that according to Section 27 of the Prisons Act, 1894, male, female inmates, under-trial prisoners and young offenders should be housed in separate sections of the prison.

The Model Prisons Manual, 2016, stipulates that young offenders, between 18 and 21 years, should not be confined in prisons meant for adult offenders. There should be separate institutions for them where, in view of their young and impressionable age, they shall be given treatment and training suited to their special needs of rehabilitation.

However, scrutiny of records along with joint physical verification of sampled district jails revealed that although male and female inmates were housed separately, young offenders were lodged together with adult offenders and undertrial prisoners were also quartered with the convicts (see chart).

The CAG also pointed out that there was nothing on record to indicate that the district jails had a mechanism to segregate young offenders at the time of their admission.

Further, it noted that the state government had not taken any action to set up separate cells/institutions to segregate the undertrial prisoners and young offenders.

The prisons department had stated in December 2018 that the matter regarding segregation of young offenders would be looked into, the report says.

The CAG recommended that the construction of the Nongstoin district jail should be expedited to ease overcrowding in the other jails and land acquisition for a new district jail at Khliehriat, the headquarters of East Jaintia Hills district, may be taken up in right earnest. It also recommended that the state government should consider setting up jails in all the districts and accelerate the trial of undertrial prisoners in a time-bound manner. “Efforts may be made to separately house undertrial prisoners and young

offenders from the convicts to avoid any undesirable, adverse influence on their impressionable minds,” it noted.