Crimes against women continue to be a major concern in India. According to the report, Prison Statistics India: 2020, among close to 90,000 prisoners serving time for committing offences, about 14.2 per cent were convicted of rape. Around 18,615 people were convicted of offences against women, with 67.9 per cent accounting for rape, while 24.5 per cent were found guilty of dowry deaths. Uttar Pradesh ranked the highest in such offences, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. It must be pointed out that each of these states has been known to perform poorly in such social indices as education, awareness, poverty and women’s empowerment. There is thus a case for greater investment in these areas on the part of the State. A comparison with data from the previous year shows that although there has been an increase in the percentage of inmates guilty of rape, the actual number of convicts were lower. But a decrease in absolute numbers may not reveal the true picture. According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau report, crimes against women in India dipped by over 8 per cent in comparison to 2019. However, the report conceded that the decrease can be attributed to the Covid-19 induced lockdown which not only limited people’s movement in public spaces but also worsened women’s access to the police and courts, leading to a gross under-reporting of crimes.
Prison Statistics India reveals other challenges. The conviction rate has not improved, pointing to high pendency rates, slowing the wheels of justice. Prisoners’ rights remain under-debated. Indian prisons remain overcrowded and some of these ‘reformatories’ have abysmal amenities by way of food, sanitation and medicines. Although many prisons offer vocational training and educational programmes to inmates, few actually run such initiatives successfully. The reformation of Indian prisons, including living conditions and the well-being — physical and mental — of prisoners must be prioritized. Otherwise, the modern idea of prisons being sites of humane reformation would be defeated.
